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On October 13th, 2021, the peacebuilding world had one less friend in this world, and a grand addition to its guardian angels.
The world has one less lantern in it, but more light shining down upon it.
Avon Mattison’s life mission was to bring peace to our planet through a transmission that all of us can be a unique Pathway To Peace, and every moment is an opportunity to create peace.
In the last three months of her life Avon was prolific in her passion to spread peace. On this tribute page we’ve compiled the culminating videos and writings highlighting her life’s work and final words. Her work inspired ours here at the Fyera Foundation. May it live on in us, and in all of you who serve and choose peace.
Avon Mattison
April 10, 1941 – October 13, 2021
Burning brightly forever in the love within our hearts.
Fyera Foundation
Sarah Syed
Sarah is an 18-year-old climate activist and innovator. She is a Youth Board Member at The Fyera Foundation, a fellow at The David Suzuki Foundation, and a climate education workshop facilitator/community and social media manager at Starfish Canada. Sarah is passionate about leveraging her passion for tech to research and design equitable climate-tech solutions. From bioplastic research made from food scraps to her most recent project that spanned over two years, a biodegradable sorbent made from polymers, biomass, and polysaccharide aerogels that have the efficiency of removing 98% of oils, organic compounds, and heavy metal compounds. Sarah is currently working on leveraging nanomaterials to design a rotating and semi-transparent solar cell and an IoT water sensor to reduce water wastage in agriculture. Her efforts have been recognized by distinguishable honors such as MP Dan Albas, NDP Critic for Environment and Climate Change Laurel Collins, and The Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell during the Ontario Junior Citizen award ceremony. She has also been named a Top 25 Under 25 Environmentalist in Canada, Ontario Junior Citizen, and 1 of 3 young women making a mark on climate change by the Weather Network, National Nature Inspirational Youth, and Future Mind Under 25.
She is also the founder of You Are the Change, a youth-led organization dedicated to helping youth become changemakers in their community. She enjoys sharing her story and ideas in hopes of inspiring other youth and ensuring that action is taken now on the life-threatening climate crisis. Sarah has spoken at many conferences including the United Nations Water Conference Offical Side event, UN Science, Technology and Innovation Forum, Eco Impact, HWY H2O, Electricity Transformation Canada, AWE USA, University of Toronto, and McGill University, among others.
We are a proud member of Mediators Beyond Borders International and participate in their United Nations and Sustainable Development Goals working groups while also partnering with them in Nicaragua and other zones of civil unrest to bring dialogue in place of violence.
Regina Shuvanova
The universe that we all call home is made up of amazing energy accessible to all of those who are willing to see it and embrace it. This energy can make any dream a reality. It has been my life journey and passion to help those who are distracted and unable to see clearly, find their path. This energy is everywhere and present in everything we do, from basic daily short term activities, to long term complex life discoveries. I was born in Tashkent Uzbekistan, a product of 2 Russian parents. I am bilingual in Russian and English. Having moved from Uzbekistan to Russia, and then to the United States, I have always wanted to bring people of the world together, to learn from each other, to grow, and to harness that energy. I received a Masters degree in Diplomacy & International Relations from Seton Hall University. I worked on developing international business relationships and cooperation through my role with the Mid-Atlantic Eurasia Business Council (MAEBC/MARBC) in Philadelphia, PA. With my career moving forward, a wonderful gift was given to me midstream. I became a mom. Life moves in mysterious ways and has its own path at times, yet, this energy I speak of is found in all things, at times, where you least expect it. I relocated from the West Coast and now live in San Diego California. I am currently in a leadership role with Caesars Entertainment, live with a loving husband, and a beautiful son. Without a doubt, being a mom has taught me more than I could have ever imagined, and has helped me in my own journey to find that energy.
Sandra Solano
M.D., M.S.
Sandra is a healthcare professional with more than 20 years of experience as a Healthcare Executive and consultant and now has her own Holistic Wellness practice in New Albany, Ohio. Dr. Solano successfully implemented large scale transformational projects in the private and public sector and was recognized as a successful disruptor and change agent. Through her career, Dr. Solano experienced personally and professionally the detrimental impact that stress and lack of emotional regulation has in productivity, communication and efficacy in the work place and family life. Through her practice, she works with individuals, teams, groups and organizations to bring evidence-based tools and skills that empower the individual to develop emotional fitness and stress management.
While she enjoyed a successful and fulfilling career in public health, Dr. Solano felt disconnected and unfulfilled. She continued studying alternative health modalities and how they could improve wellness. After extensive research and training, Sandra chose a combination of methods that facilitate the regulation of emotions and management of stress as the foundation of her holistic wellness practice. Dr. Solano is a certified trainer of HeartMath’s Resilience Advantage™ program; certified practitioner Shuniya Tibetan Bowl Sound Healing©; a Reiki Master; and a practitioner of Holographic Memory Resolution©.
After personally experiencing and practicing these tools, Dr. Solano feels connected with her authentic self and feels a sense of hope and peace that she wants to share with others. Learning about and experiencing these techniques brought her a new understanding of health as a state of balance and wholeness. Her concept of health sees every person as a fundamentally perfect being. Her passion is to help others to find that connection, authenticity, peace, and hope that she is now able to experience
Matthew Mitchell
Matthew Mitchell has over 30 years experience in sales, business development, and relationship management. He is an international speaker and consultant specializing in high performance and human potential. He gives people the tools and guidance necessary to eliminate the limiting beliefs and behaviors that hold them back so that they can achieve excellence in their personal and professional lives.
Matthew received his Masters of International Management from The American Graduate School of International Management in Phoenix, Arizona and his MBA at ESADE, (Escuela Superior de Administraccion y Direccion de Empresas) in Barcelona, Spain.
Matthew’s diverse career has spanned a number of industries. He spent ten years doing finance deals for large corporate clients with US Leasing and GE Capital. He made a career change in the early ‘90’s by going to work for Lucasfilm Ltd. in the Entertainment industry. He headed their electronic editing systems division and represented their proprietary technology to the major studios and production companies.
Matthew later served as VP of Television sales for two top post-production facilities in Los Angeles, once again cultivating relationships with studio heads, and independent film companies. He spent several years in the Communications industry with Qwest Digital Media being one of the first to sell the ability to deliver content over the Internet.
In 2004, he began his own consulting practice specializing in teaching high level skills to the fortune 100.
At present, Matthew is a keynote speaker, an expert in “Negotiation Skills”, “Organizational Savvy”, “Power Messaging”, and “Executive Presence” skills. He travels nationally conducting public seminars in negotiation skills. He has consulted and trained some of the biggest companies in the world. Current and former clients include: UPS, VMware, EMC, GE (multiple divisions), Honeywell, Tektronix, Ciena, Fujitsu Networks, Pratt & Whitney, Exxon Mobil Chemical, Microsoft, ATT, Sprint, Yahoo, Earthlink, Oracle, Cisco, HP, Intel, AMD, Aetna, Prudential, Siemens, Owens Corning, Cardinal Health, Care Fusion / Becton Dickenson, Autodesk, Caremark, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Abbott Labs, Wellpoint, United Healthcare, Optum Health, Ingenix, Hersheys, Applied Materials, Kronos, Ceridian, Unisys, Intelsat, Colgate Palmolive, and Medela.
Carold Garcia
16 years overseeing the operations of our programs in Nicaragua while raising her 16 year old daughter Lidia.
I am Carold García Castillo, Nicaraguan, graduated in Business Administration (UNAN-MANAGUA) with training in the HeartMath techniques and Regional Director for Fundación Fyera Nicaragua. I was born in January 1979 in Managua. I come from a family of limited resources and numerous, I am divorced and single mother of a lady of 15 years. I have vague memories of bittersweet childhood, my crib was the arms of my parents, my food the hope of my humble family and a people afflicted to see a new sun until the end of the Sandinista popular revolution of 1979-1990. In 1991 I heard Sheva’s name for the first time, her influential person formed in me a firm spirit, an integral character, a strength, and a deep desire to face everything. My life mission is at the service of families, to make a difference in the beating of their hearts.
Mai Shbeta
Lawyer, Mediator, Project Manager and Group Facilitator
Mai is a peace activist, human rights lawyer, mediator, and group facilitator. She was born and raised in Wahat al Salam-Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace), the only intentional Jewish-Arab village in Israel. Her mother is Jewish and her father is Palestinian and her dream is to be a bridge between the two people. Since she was young, Mai has been active in programs that promote peace, leadership, and human rights in different organizations like Global Changemakers, Creativity for Peace, V-Girls (V-Day) and UNESCO’s Young Peace Ambassadors Workshop. She is a board member of the Fyera Foundation and is primarily working on a project that seeks to end human trafficking (the project includes a feature film, documentary film and online platform). In 2011, when she was 19, she participated and gave a speech about her work at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Mai completed her legal internship at Michael Sfard’s human rights law office in Tel Aviv. She studied mediation and is seeking to give workshops and mediate between people in different conflict zones. Right now she is working as a project manager at the “Elmina” Jewish-Arab theatre in Jaffa and at the Center for Multiculturalism and Diversity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and she is also developing a mediation project between Israeli and Palestinian leaders and politicians.
Cheryl Geoffrion
Cheryl Geoffrion is certified as a trainer, facilitator and coach by The Institute of HeartMath and The International Center for Attitudinal Healing. She has facilitated one-on-one coaching, support groups, and workshops for more then 24 years utilizing these principles and practices as well as many other transformational life techniques. She has also worked with Fortune 100 companies, Non-Profits, and individuals as an expert negotiator, facilitator, and coach in sales and negotiation skills, leadership development, interpersonal communication and conflict resolution. She is a published co-author of The Three Value Conversations, How to Create, Elevate, & Capture Customer Value at Every Stage of the Long-Lead Sales with a feature article of the same theme in Top Sales World Magazine. An international motivational speaker, teacher, and former TV talk show host, Cheryl brings experience, compassion and vision to her work.
For more than two decades, Cheryl has been highly sought as a keynote speaker and consultant to a wide variety of public, private and educational institutions. Her experience, passion, sense of humor, and ability to drive high-impact performance execution enable her to be both entertaining and remarkably effective at producing transformational results.
Additionally she has the unique privilege to specialize in comprehensive international and domestic sport sponsorship and corporate hospitality programs working with the Olympics and FIFA World Cup implementing programs for Top Sponsors in Asia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States. She also served as the Managing Director of the Avon Breast Cancer 3-days and the National AIDSRides during which time she was responsible for many multi-million dollar charitable events nationwide. Cheryl’s global experience ensures a strong cultural awareness.
Cheryl started her professional career as an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) where she honed a skillset that enabled her to achieve great success as one of the youngest certified in ATC nationwide. She went on to pioneer unique performance enhancing coaching programs for Air Traffic Managers and Supervisors.
Affiliations:
-Fyera Foundation
-Institute of HeartMath
-The International Center for Attitudinal Healing
-CMCM T.V./Talk Show Host
-Summer Olympics: Beijing, London, Rio de Janeiro
-FIFA World Cup, South Africa
-Winter Olympics, Vancouver
Robert Browning
Director of HeartMath Healthcare and Consultant to / Trainer with Fyera; Co-Vice President of United Nations Peace Messenger Organization ‘Pathways To Peace’
Robert Browning, PhD (h.c.) is Co-Director for HeartMath Healthcare and a Senior Master Trainer. For over 25 years with HeartMath, he’s trained more than 20,000 individuals in heart-based living and leads programs at: Stanford, U.C.L.A., Brigham & Women’s and Kaiser Permanente. He oversees HeartMath’s strategic healthcare alliances focused on self-care, human caring and wholeness healing. In April, 2015, Robert received an Honorary Doctorate in Human Caring and Caring Science from Dr. Jean Watson, Founder and Director, Watson Caring Science Institute and Dean Emerita-University of Colorado, Denver, College of Nursing. It was given “to honor devotion to the betterment of humankind through human caring – heart centered teachings and practices.”
He holds a faculty position with the Esalen Institute and Watson Caring Science Institute and adjunct faculty with the University of Colorado-Anschutz Medical Campus, College of Nursing. Robert graduated from U.C.L.A., Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Communications. His passion and 20 year focused inquiry on the power of the heart, care and healing has informed the depth of his work, practice and message.
Melinda Dewey
Board Certified Coach. Trainer. Speaker. Mentor. Operations Officer. The Fyera Foundation Board Member and Secretary
Following a successful 17-year business career in roles as a Corporate Controller, Project Manager and bank Loan Officer, Melinda now combines her business expertise and passion for health, empowerment, and resilience as Operations Officer in addition to her private practice as a certified Life and Breath Coach and HeartMath Coach and Trainer to individuals and groups. Some of her related certifications, training, and 30 years of full-time wellness-related experience include:
It is also my privilege to serve as a board member and secretary of non-profit The Fyera Foundation since 2011.
It is my joy to engage in awakening authenticity, potential and heart intelligence with the power of the heart to generate inner and outer peace.
Sheva Carr
Sheva Carr is a visionary, humanitarian, creator, lover of life, author, speaker, doctor of Oriental Medicine, Board Certified Polarity Therapist and Registered Polarity Educator, and expert HeartMath trainer and coach. She loves to help people find fulfillment and peace within the power of their hearts! She is the founding CEO of Fyera! Inc and Heart Ambassadors, a global network of endeavors sharing a common purpose of creating measurable social ROI to transform the world’s story with heart. Under the umbrella of that mission she is the architect of HeartMath’s www.heartmastery.com program, the founding Executive Director of the Fyera Foundation and Sunflower SunPower Kids, and Co-Vice President and Head of UN Delegations for the United Nations Peace Messenger Organization Pathways To Peace www.pathwaystopeace.org . The author of “Being the Source of Love” and “Where the Sky Meets the Earth,” she is featured as a “love luminary” in Marci Schimoff’s New York Times bestselling book “Love for No Reason.” She cofounded (with Global Womens Empowerent Network and The Representation Project) the annual Women Illuminated Film Festival. She is also the founding visionary behind www.operationbigsister.org designed to enroll a Civilian Army to contribute to efforts to end sex trafficking and modern day slavery. She mentors teens from Israel and Palestine in peace dialogues with www.creativityforpeace.org under the motto “An enemy is a friend whose story you have yet to hear.”
She has created her own trauma relief interventions with her knowledge of the autonomic nervous system, and has been published in respected medical journals as “Perspectives in Biology and Medicine,” and other publications including “The UN Special.” She has trained and mentored medical staff from C-level executives to bedside nurses at distinguished medical centers, including Mayo Clinic, Harvard, Stanford, Cedars Sinai, Kaiser Permanente, and more. She also founded the first HeartMath hospital patient education program at Earl Bakken’s Heart-Brain Institute. She co-authored HeartMath’s Stopping Emotional Eating Program with Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman and was the coach and manager of the participants involved in the study done on that program. Previously on the Faculty of Alternative Medicine at University of Minnesota, and a professor of Oriental Medicine at Emperor’s College, she has worked as a coach and consultant to leading cardiologists, heart-brain researchers, and physicists. She has also trained United Nations staff and numerous international government agencies, and soldiers preparing for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.
She did her undergraduate work in fine arts, cross cultural international studies, Spanish, and premed at Carnegie Mellon Universty, Yale, Friends World College, and Dalhousie University. She received experiential credits for her work in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Holland, England, and Canada. Her Masters Degree is in Traditional Chinese Medicine from Yo San University.
Sheva speaks to people all over the world on how to access heart intelligence and peace of mind, in order to receive the benefits of the heart’s impact on their relationships, health, performance, creativity, contribution, legacy, social change, and the building of a global culture of peace.
Please see Sheva Carr’s full bio HERE
And CV HERE
Kevin Crowe
Kevin is an innovative senior executive who brings expertise in philanthropy, communications, non-profit management, and organizational development. Most recently he held a national philanthropy position focused on providing education to physicians and clinicians on the science of gratitude and building an organizational culture of gratitude within a national non-profit health system. He is an international speaker and consultant, and as a certified trainer of HeartMath’s Resilience Advantage™ program, Kevin has facilitated individuals and teams all over the world in creating heart focused personal change initiatives.
In addition to 29 years in healthcare administration and overlapping with 18 years in philanthropy, Kevin’s career has included hospitality management and higher education. He is passionate about institutional culture transformation and over the years and in several roles, has led multiple initiatives in his organizations that focus on service, satisfaction, and gratitude. Kevin has served on multiple boards including The Board of Visitors of the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Nursing and The Board of Directors of the Association of Fundraising Professionals – Chicago Chapter.
Kevin holds a Bachelor of General Studies in organizational management and leadership from North Park University in Chicago and is certified by The Institute of HeartMath and the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance. He is also a certified trainer and facilitator of multiple culture change and operational efficiency programs. He is a Reiki Master and Reiki Master trainer and an Akashic Records consultant. Kevin uses a combination of these modalities with mindfulness and resilience practices in bringing his best self forward to be present and in service to others.
Bringing applied heart intelligence to peace dialogues between teens from Israel and Palestine under the motto, “An enemy is a friend whose story you have yet to hear” with our partner Creativity for Peace. Fyera Foundation provided university scholarships to young women peace builders.
Fyera Foundation is an authorized provider of Amma’s IAM Meditation Instruction, taught to thousands of people around the world at no charge.
Collect monetary support to purchase “outer” PPE and donate to frontline organizations most in need.
Distribute messages of gratitude from the public to frontline workers, boosting moral and emphasizing appreciation.
