Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation

Board of Directors

Brett Rosen, Executive Director

Brett Rosen is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation. Brett brings over 24 years of business leadership experience to the foundation, having spent more than 18 years as the CEO of an international natural products and botanical research company. A student of H.H. The Gyalwa Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje, Brett spent twelve years of service at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, The Karmapa’s main seat in North America, a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery located near Woodstock, NY.

Over the last three decades Brett has spent enough time in India to develop a respectful knowledge of the land, its people. For over fourteen years he has helped to develop schools and learning centers in under-served areas of India. Through the Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation, Brett integrates the skills he has acquired through a lifetime of business experience with his knowledge of educational, economic and sustainable community development in India.

Brett offers to the Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation a vision for developing scalable solutions to educational challenges in India. Focusing on long-term goals, fund-raising, public speaking, and social media utilization, Brett has learned how to recognize and nurture the positive qualities of communities to implement effective strategies for helping people to help themselves. He specializes in creating organizational teams that thrive on creative action and value the rewards of growing human potential to its fullest expression.

Dwariko Sundarani

Dwariko Sundarani one of the co-founders of the Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation is the last living student of Mahatma Gandhi and he carries the Gandhian tradition with him to this modern day. Sundarani is also regarded as an ardent follower and heir to the wisdom of Vinoba Bhave – whom Gandhi choose in 1940 to be the first Individual Satyagrahi (an Individual standing up for Truth instead of a collective action) during a time of important transformation for the country of India.

He is one of the founders of Samanvay Ashram, which has a rich inception to translate the ideal of Gandhi and Vinoba's vision. His ashram has hosted personalities like J. Nehru, Martin Luther King Jr. II, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many founding leaders of freedom movements.

Dwariko initiated a yearly program of free public Eye Surgery, hosted near Bodhgaya, every Oct./Nov. for the past 20 years. This camp provides free surgery to thousands of people every year. The eye operation camp, under his constructive advice, is regarded as one of the biggest medical camps in India. Over 300,000 people in india have received free eye surgery because of Dwariko' efforts.

Dwariko Sundarani is the recipient of the renowned Jammunalal Bajaj Award for his outstanding contribution to uplifting the most vulnerable, deprived and down-trodden in the communities of Bihar. He has been Secretary, Executive Member and Trustee of various National and International voluntary agencies. He enjoys tremendous goodwill for translating non-violence into action through love and compassion. He has visited some of the world's most famous universities, representing Gandhi's strategies for global peace.

Dwariko Sundarani lives compassion and does not preach it. His Bagha Ashram has worked on alternative curriculums and Gandhian education for many years. Education through life, for life and of life has been the mission of his visionary and revolutionary approach; Sundarani’s work is a vital contribution and inspiration to the Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation.

Thomas Galligan

As a co-founder of the Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation Thomas brings over 30 year of business leadership to the foundation. With graduate degrees in Agricultural Science and Education he was the Senior Executive for the Irish Farming Development Organization. In charge of implementing long term strategies that brought sustainable benefit to the country of Ireland and its people.

Thomas has a passion for helping people reach their highest potential; he was an 8 time winner of the prestigious World Master Rowing Championships, and has been the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding achievements in community and business development.

Thomas embraces and teaches a conscious business model of community development. The philosophy of a conscious business organization is to be aware of the effects of its actions, and to consciously affect human beings and the environment in a beneficial way. Thomas has been working with impoverished communities in India for several years. Educating communities on economic development in their agricultural, farming and manufacturing practices, teaching villages how to replenish their land environmentally so that future generations will benefit economically and build upon a solid sustainable foundation.

Dhirendra Sharma

Dhirendra Sharma is the acting Project Director for the Foundation. He brings unfailing energy and inspiration for the children in the Bodhi Tree schools and their families living in the villages. Over the last several years, Dhirendra has developed a network of income-generating programs in the community such as industrial training, vocational education and technology transfer programs. His efforts have always been directed toward equipping youth with life-sustainable skillfulness. He is the Director of the Institute for Industrial Training, established under the National Council for Vocational Training, Labor Resource Department and government of India. This institution imparts training in engineering trades of the vocational streams.

He has founded an organization called Common Weal which is acting as a platform for engaging the people from various walks of life across the world, and especially within India. This organization is also working to foster a bridge between India and rest of world. As the Director of Software Solution Inc., he delivers cost effective curriculum in the Informational Technology sector to urban and rural youth. Sharma runs several communication centers for local youth, enabling them to master communication skills and other important skills needed to keep up with the advancing "changes" affecting a post-modern globalized world.

Dr. Darielle Richards, Ph.D.

Dr. Richards brings strategic business planning skills and a strong networking background to the Foundation. She is currently a co-founder of NovaSpeak Institute, offering a new generation of voice recognition computer systems for those with dexterity issues. She is also a co-founder of Global Reforestation Initiative Project that is slated to plant millions of trees around the planet over the next few years.

Darielle has spent the last 40 years in education and healing practice. In the early 1980’s, she was mentored by Dr. Elizabeth Caspari, who worked with Maria Montessori for a decade in India. Through this training and teaching experience, Darielle learned how to apply holistic education techniques to growing and healing the community. She has a deep appreciation of the individual child and what it takes to nurture their innate gifts.

Darielle has a special devotion for the land and people of India, having spent time at Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh studying with Sri Sathya Sai Baba in 1975, with continued blessings as a Kriyaban under the sponsorship of Paramahansa Yogananda and Self Realization Fellowship since 1987. For the past twenty years Darielle has been a holistic healing practitioner, she is an author, teacher and public speaker. Currently she conducts a healing practice in Oregon and teaches complementary and alternative medicine at Western Oregon University.

Dr. Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

As an educator for over four decades, Dr. Kathleen Jenks specializes in women’s studies, cross-cultural mythology, earth-based spiritual traditions, the psycho-spiritual aesthetics of ancient Hindu drama, and various healing modes related to creativity, ritual, and guided meditation. After receiving her 1992 doctorate from the Religious Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, she taught for nine years in the Mythological Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Now a resident of Michigan, she teaches World Religions and Life Journey courses at Grand Valley State University and Lake Michigan College. She also serves as a scholar-advisor to the non-profit Black Earth Institute, a progressive think-tank dedicated to re-forging the links between art and spirit, earth and society.

Kathleen is an award winning author as well as a researcher and consultant in myth, religion and psychology. Her The Green World Oracle, twenty years in the making, will be published autumn 2012. Her previously published works include an historical novel set in ancient Egypt (The River and the Stone), and various academic papers and essays found in Psychological Perspectives, Journal of Regression Therapy, and Musicworks Society of Ontario. Since 1998, she has maintained Myth*ing Links www.mythinglinks.org, a popular website on worldwide sacred traditions and mythology.

Melynda Sylvestre

Melynda brings enthusiasm and a diverse background to the Foundation. Over 20 years of experience in the field of natural health care has been integrated with both business and philanthropic projects over the past two decades. As co-founder and owner of several holistic health-based companies, and an accomplished writer, Melynda has many years of experience in educational and health-based project development.

As a trained childbirth educator, and both a Labor Support and Post-Partum Doula, Melynda has a special interest in pregnancy, birth and neo-natal/post-partum health. After 15 years of experience in this field, this is an area in which she takes a very hands-on role in the Foundation’s Women/Child Health Programs - working directly with the women of the villages to improve maternal and neo-natal outcomes, while still respecting traditional birthing processes.

Melynda is actively involved in the development of new Foundation projects, and particularly enjoys interacting with the local population to ensure that all developing programs are responsive to their real needs and wishes. A strong belief in the capability of every person to learn and succeed in their own way underwrites all her work, and she supports the participants of the Foundation’s projects in their ultimate goal of self-sufficiency.

Tom Kelsang

Tom brings over 35 years of international business management experience, with a background in funding and third world organizational development. A graduate of Boston University with studies in third world social structure research at Tribavan University. Tom is distinguish in that he is a ordained Buddhist Monk, accomplished Western Buddhist scholar and teacher, in the Gelupa tradition, under the guidance of Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Tom has over three decades of experience working with the underserved and impoverished areas of India and Nepal, with realistic and practical compassion combined with years of service organizational experience, Tom helps the Bodhi Tree Educational Foundation develop funding resources and planning for integral long term sustainable educational and healthcare programs.

Vinay Tiwari

Mr. Vinay Tiwari is an innovator in the field of low-cost housing, zero energy building materials and township development in India. He has been awarded the Vishveshwaraiya Award for his cost-effective vision of developing a vibrant, hygienic township. He is among those fortunate architects who have worked under the kind supervision and in the gracious company of the highly respected Laurence Wilfred Baker.

His cost effective designs have been adopted by numerous the prestigious governmental and semi-governmental organizations in India and around the world (eg UNICEF, Bihar Education Project).

He is also known for various integrated social initiatives. His model Ashram Vihar Housing Design is regarded as a very cost-effective building, enabling the rural and urban poor to dream of majestic housing scenarios. The Sambodhi Retreat Resort in Bodhgaya is a prime example of his indigenous resource utilization.