Helena Baronheid is an experienced speaker and seminar leader, Traditional Usui Reiki Master and Teacher, intercultural consultant, executive coach, personal coach, and raw/living foodist. Her mission is to help others awaken to their own healing potential. In this work, she has witnessed many miracles as people learn to take charge of their own health and life experiences. She believes that personal transformation, spiritual development, and the practice of peaceful interaction in a person’s more immediate environment – at home, at work, and in their community – are the keys for social and global transformation towards a more peaceful and positive world. In 2010, Helena moved to a small organic farm in Brazil, where she studies the medicinal properties of her native country’s varied fruits, vegetables, and herbs.
In her role as Co-Director of Viva Institute, Helena teaches about the raw/living food lifestyle, conducts Reiki certification classes, and stress-management and manifesting/imagery workshops. Her workshops include: Difficult People and Other Angels – How to Interpret and Resolve your Life and Work Challenges; Reiki: Pathway to Health; Manifesting: Transforming your Dreams into Reality; and Introduction to Live Food. Helena’s work has been featured on CNN Headline News and WJJZ 106.
As a consultant for organizations and corporations in the US, Brazil, Canada, and France, Helena brings her healing work to the social level, coaching individuals and multi-cultural teams on how to communicate, interpret difficulties as engines for change and growth, resolve conflict, and develop better relationships in the workplace. She has provided consulting and group training for executives in various industries (Vale Inco, Sanofi-Aventis, GM, International Paper, Cargill, Merck, Johnson and Johnson, Monsanto, Bristol-Myers Squibb, PWC, Pfizer, Harley Davidson) and worked as a cultural liaison for government and non-governmental agencies in the US in programs aimed at fostering cultural understanding and exchange.
Helena has a certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from Cornell University, and has completed her executive coaching coursework at the Coaches Training Institute through the Co-Active Coaching Model program.
Helena has been a Reiki Master and Teacher for 8 years. She received her Reiki One certification in NYC in 2000, from Master Elaine Abrams of the Usui Shiki Ryoho tradition. She has been a Reiki practitioner since then, having received her Reiki II attunements and certification (in 2001) and her Teacher and Master level certification (2002) from Reiki Teacher and Master Hannelore Goodwin, also from the Usui Reiki Shiki Ryoho tradition. She also received Reiki II attunements from Elaine Abrams, in New York. Helena studied Shiatsu at the International School of Shiatsu in Doylestown.
She has an M.A. degree in Latin American Studies from New York University, a B.A. in Social Sciences and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), São Paulo, and a B.A. in Communications and Journalism from the PUCC University in Brazil.
Leigh Hopkins is an experienced educator, speaker, and seminar leader. In her role as Founder and Director of Viva Institute, Leigh develops and designs all of Viva’s online learning programs and retreats. Her online courses include: Introduction to Live Food; Live Your Bliss: Tools for Transforming Your Life, and Psychic Development for Beginners with Echo Bodine. She is a Contributing Writer for Suite 101, an online lifestyle magazine, where she has published more than 60 articles on health and wellness, metaphysics, raw food, and public education. In 2010, Leigh moved to a small organic farm in Brazil, where she is a practicing raw foodist, nature enthusiast an avid reader of indiscriminate tastes.
Leigh became aware of her intuitive abilities early in life but chose to set them aside until she was ready to fully understand them. Eventually, she learned to accept—and later embrace—her visits from the Other Side. It was then that she began her studies in earnest. Today, she is the co-instructor and curriculum developer of world-renowned psychic Echo Bodine’s online course, Psychic Development for Beginners. Leigh and Echo’s goal for this course and others is to provide participants with the tools necessary to open up to their own intuitive abilities—gifts that we all possess.
Leigh is a practicing Intiutive. The overarching goal of each of Leigh’s readings is to provide her clients with information that can improve their overall state of health, happiness, and wellness. She believes that the purpose of physical life is to experience joy, and this is something that she is deeply committed to helping her clients to achieve on an ongoing, daily basis. Visit here to schedule an Intuitive Reading.
Before moving her life to Brazil, Leigh worked in public education reform for more than 20 years. She served as the National Network Director for the National Center on Time and Learning, a national non-profit organization dedicated to improving academic achievement and providing a well-rounded education for public school students. Prior to joining the National Center on Time and Learning, Leigh was Vice President for Education Initiatives at Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the effectiveness of social policies and programs. After joining P/PV in 2000, Leigh expanded P/PV’s after school technical assistance from 20 classrooms in Philadelphia to reach more than 500 classrooms in 17 cities. Leigh led P/PV’s education-based government-relations efforts, working with elected officials, lobbyists and policymakers to promote state and federal support of effective education programs and practice and to ensure that lessons learned were reflected in policy. Early in her career, Leigh was an elementary classroom teacher, reading specialist and choral accompanist. She owned and operated a private tutoring service and provided professional development and support to teachers and parents of students with learning challenges.
Leigh received a BS in Elementary Education from the State University of New York at Oswego and a Master’s degree in Education from Nazareth College. She has a certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from Cornell University and is a certified Advanced Level Reiki Practitioner. Visit her blog at www.liveyourbliss.wordpress.com, which tells the story of her life transformation and move to Brazil.
Tiana Rodrigues is the chef and owner of Viva Institute’s partner restaurant, Universo Organico, Brazil’s first live food restaurant and organic market. Universo Organico provides all meals for Viva Institute’s retreats. Located in Rio de Janeiro, Universo Organico, first opened as an organic produce market in 2004 and as a live food and vegan restaurant in May 2006. Since that time, Tiana’s work has been featured in multiple Brazilian national magazines, in the largest national newspapers in the country and on three national mainstream TV networks.
Tiana has more than 27 years experience in the restaurant and food industry. She owned her first restaurant, Vício Perfeito, at the age of 24. The restaurant was geared towards salads and healthier eating at time when health food in Brazil consisted of eating salads with mayonnaise and creams. After three years of hard work, Tiana decided to broaden her horizons and moved to New York City in 2001, where she trained at one of the best vegetarian schools at that time, the Natural Gourmet School. During this time, while learning about nutrition, her spiritual consciousness also started growing.
One of the most important events in Tiana’s life was discovering Reiki (Universal Life Force). After becoming a practitioner and Reiki Master, the practice of Reiki brought her to a more intimate contact with nature. The deeper contact with nature made her miss her country, Brazil, so after 11 years in the US, she returned to her roots.
In Rio, Tiana learned that her brother was starting a small organic produce store. She and her brother started making Suco de Luz (“Sunlight Juice”) in their store and it became increasingly popular, winning her store the award of “Best Juices in Rio” in 2007. They explained to people how juice made with sprouts was important for cleaning and purifying the blood, and how living foods were essential for health, longevity, and spirituality. Tiana saw her dream come true and finally opened a truly healthy live food restaurant.
With a new purpose, Tiana traveled back to New York in 2005, to study live food at Jubbs Longevity, and worked at Pure Food & Wine with Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis, where she learned about live gourmet food. In August of 2005 Tiana returned to Rio with renewed clarity and an urgent goal: to open a gourmet restaurant in Rio where people could eat healthy but beautiful and tasty food. In 2006 the restaurant and organic market Universo Organico was created. The restaurant is now thriving, bringing people from Brazil and around the world into the wonderful universe of live food.
Tiana Rodrigues has a Bachelor of Arts in graphic design from PUC University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She currently lives a block from Copacabana Beach, where she enjoys drinking fresh coconut juice and absorbing the beauty of her native country.
