Sophie Theriault is a life-long self-directed-learner.  She has grown up mostly within the landscape of central VT, though has spent time living in Colorado, Upstate New York, and the Toledo District of Belize.  For most of her life she has created a patchwork livelihood for herself, co-running a small pre-school, working as a waitress, nanny, farm hand, smoothie maker, house builder, songwriter/musician, dancer, crafter, photographer, freelance journalist, event organizer, and workshop facilitator, among a few other things.

A certified permaculture designer, Sophie is also an award winning songwriter who delights in studying, creating, and mentoring.  She is passionate about designing and actualizing projects that provide opportunities to explore life in ways that are empowered and joyful. She is ever pondering the meaning of life, love, and sustainability.  Some of her other passions include: circus art, clothing design and renovation, dance, feminism, fermenting things, frolicking in the woods with her big sister and their Golden Retriever pal, reading inspiring non-fiction, reading engaging poignant short stories, sufi poetry, traveling, yoga, and loving being alive.

All of Vida Samiha’s projects are made possible by the dedicated contributions of many inspiring supporters. To see a list of the people and businesses that have contributed to this organization click here!

Sean is a passionate social and environmental entrepreneur and an inspired life-long learner.  He focuses on creating collaborative and empowering platforms for people to work on creating a just and sustainable world.  He sees this work beginning with himself, and so strives everyday to move through his life with consciousness, grace, and consistency. 

Sean serves on the Board of Directors of The Common Fire Foundation, which helps create intentional communities, ranging from cooperative houses to neighborhood-scale projects (www.CommonFire.org).

Until early 2010, Sean was a managing partner of a green home design and general contracting company that he co-founded in early 2007 (www.DeepGreenBuilding.net).  

Sean finds that he is the happiest when he is living and working in ways that are holistic and are pushing him to expand his vision for the future.  This means that he generally is enjoying life the most when his is starting and building projects that save the world, dancing, drinking really good tea, having his mind blown by other people’s talents and contributions, actively using his body, taking lots of pictures, being grateful for his breath, and living passionately.

Kaylyn Guetti

Rafter T. Sass

Seeing a need for a curriculum that helps create constructive strategies for connecting social justice and sustainability, he has been developing and sharing the Liberation Ecology workshop for the past five years. He now consults and teaches permaculture professionally, and studies ecological design at the graduate level.

Lillie P. Allen

Kavitha Rao

Kavitha has also served as member of the Board of Directors of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest and oldest interfaith nonviolence organization in the world, and is the lead facilitator for FOR's Nonviolent Youth Collective, leading workshops and week-long anti-oppression and nonviolence trainings for young adults. Through the years she has worked as a facilitator or consultant with several organizations including Be Present, the Center for Whole Communities, and the Circle of Life Foundation.

Kavitha is a yoga teacher, thrilled to share with others this practice that has fueled and sustained her own activism, helping her to ground her work from a place of love and creative action rather than merely anger and reaction.

After working on environmental justice issues in the Bay Area, Kavitha became an International Correspondent for the Odyssey's World Trek for Service and Education, traveling for 2 years to over 30 countries, reporting on history, culture, and contemporary issues of countries overlooked in most American textbooks for the Odyssey's free educational website that was used by over 5,000 teachers and 60,000 K-12 students. She has worked with grassroots organizations around the world and is humbled by the immense commitment and vision she has witnessed from people unwilling to accept that the violence, injustice, and poverty that may surround them is the only way things have to be.

Jeff Golden

Jeff is the co-founder and co-director of The Common Fire Foundation (See Kavitha’s Bio for Details). Before co-founding Common Fire in 2001, Jeff was Founder and Executive Director of Odyssey Internet Treks for Service and Education, a non-profit creating progressive online content on culture and politics worldwide (worldtrek.org & ustrek.org). That work earned him the State Department's Millenium International Volunteer Award in 2000 and an Ashoka Fellowship Nomination in the field of Education. Prior to that he taught high school in San Francisco's Mission district, primarily teaching about the political history of Latin America as part of the Spanish bilingual program.

In 2001 he moved to New York to serve for three years as the Executive Director of the Jonas Foundation, a 75-year old non-profit that runs Camp Rising Sun, one of the world's foremost international youth service programs. He has been dedicated full-time to Common Fire since then, though rumor has it that there have been sightings of him playing guitar, writing, dancing joyfully into the wee hours of the morning, and playing chess with his grandmother.

Mark Krawczyk

Jaxon Morgan

Jaxon has also worked as a Carpentry instructor for Vermont Works For Women (VWW).  VWW is a non-profit organization based in northern Vermont. He taught carpentry to women housed at the South Eastern Correctional Facility in Windsor Vermont. This program built one Energy Star, three bedroom modular home per year to be sold to a local non-profit organization that would find a qualified low income buyer.

Jaxon also worked as a recreation therapist, for Larico Youth Homes (a treatment center for adolescents) in Ft. Collins, Colorado.

WHO WE ARE