About Us & Our Team
It is time to take massive action to address challenges for our fellow citizens.
Our Vision
To create a prosperous future for under-resourced humans across the globe while supporting a natural thriving world.
Our Mission
To be a multi-project, multi-phase group that delivers holistic solutions with local champions to address real problems.
Why We Do What We Do
Poverty and social injustice are accelerating an unsustainable demand for natural resources and wild lands, fuelling a climate crisis across the planet. Strategic impact partnerships with local and indigenous communities play a critical role in creating long-term human-nature balance.
What we do:
We partner with communities to collaborate on strategic plans based on their needs for key services and critical infrastructure. We shift from minimal viable income models to minimal viable resource models. Each project is locally owned and run.
If people had access to food, water, energy, education, housing, healthcare and jobs, how would they show up differently? How could they add to the solutions so desperately needed by their community and surrounding communities?
Our Guiding Principles
Trust: Built on shared values, lasting long-term relationships, and measured impact.
Listen: People know what they need, we just have to ask.
Women: Uplifting women because when women lead, communities thrive.
Balance: Fostering balanced interdependence between communities and ecosystems.
Culture: Valuing traditional and cultural knowledge.
Partner: Partnerships for building resilience in collaboration.
By co-creating these models, we create lasting local solutions to foster resilient, thriving communities.
Dramatically lower costs:
Use proven, scalable solutions to create prosperity.
Regenerative revenue:
Generate enough income to cover annual operating expenses.
Locally led:
Designed, run and enjoyed
Meet the Abundant Village Team
Briana Evigan
Area of focus: My role is to connect the dots globally and build the foundation, by putting the teams together for Abundant Village, in different countries around the world. As a storyteller, I believe watching other people's stories can change the lives of millions. My job is to find the impactful stories and translate them to film, television or into documentaries.
What inspires me: Watching human transformation, having a change of heart, saving animals, protecting planet earth, stories telling, music, dance, believing you can make a difference and watching it all unfold knowing that if you never give up hope, you can keep dreaming and anything is possible. Whether it's finding villages to make abundant, finding the people on the ground to protect the land, team building or community building. My passion is in inspiring humans to thrive. Traveling around the world for the last 15 years, I’ve got eyes on several different areas globally where we will be able to scale the projects and impact the lives of millions.
Career Highlights: Having been an actor the past 15 years in successful studio films, my highlight was producing and directing our completed pilot episode for MoveMe South Africa the docuseries. Working with Robert Rodriquez and Quinton Tarantino in the TV series From Dusk ‘til Dawn was also one for the books.
Stuart Newton
Areas of focus: My role is to create relationships and partnerships for many of the solutions within Abundant Village. Create ways to scale what we learn and refine the model to easily adapt to new and existing villages. Also, focus on expanding regenerative revenue approaches to create ongoing funding models for each project.
What inspires me: I love our purpose at Abundant Village: Positively impacting the lives of millions, both animals and humans alike. I am passionate about making a difference, solving complex social challenges and inspiring happiness in others. Abundant Villages allows me to do all that and more.
Career highlights:I enjoy building relationships. For almost 40 years, I have been in sales, sales leadership and a senior executive across numerous industries. I’ve developed a vast network eager to help each other with referrals to support our continued success. I recently retired as the national business development leader for the Blockchain practice and co-founded the Wine Practice at Deloitte, so I can focus my efforts on Abundant Village and advising interesting projects.
Elle Winsted
Area of Focus: My role is to make sure all the moving parts of Abundant Village run smoothly and effectively. I believe strongly in a human-centered approach to community building which requires active listening, intentional planning, consistent engagement and thoughtful management. And of course, kindness!
What inspires me: Collective joy is a big one for me. The feeling of sharing in each other's human experiences makes me feel deeply connected to my core being and humanity. It lights my soul on fire. I also love learning about traditions practiced amongst various cultures as it keeps generations connected throughout time. I'm a lover of people, places, animals and the earth.
Career highlights: The core values that drive my career are exploration, empathy and service. I have worked with communities around the world and am incredibly passionate about engaging with them to find solutions that can add long-lasting value to their lives. A career highlight is Victor's Home Project where I built a relationship with a former student with Muscular Dystrophy and his family over a decade. We worked to provide care for him and build a home that could be a safe and healthy space for him to live. Throughout that process, I learned the value of active listening, having empathy and serving others who might not have the resources to do so with humility. I learned the power of community and working together which has shaped me into a better human.
Lotus Khoza
Areas of focus: My role is to create linkages between communities and Abundant Village. Also, encouraging community participation as we develop each village. Additionally, keeping an eye on stakeholder engagement and management.
What inspires me: I love my communities and Abundant Village will provide me a platform to continue developing and empowering my people. All driven by positive impact in both conservation and communities.
Career highlights: I am inspired by community engagement and helping people up with solutions for themselves. Working with the communities and not working for them. While new ideas are important, communities have to be on board for the sustainability and ownership of any project. My 20 years’ of experience in Community Development and Conservation enables dialogue between donors and communities.
Phivo Artemides:
Areas of Focus: Developing insight into the agricultural value chain beneficiation of communities whilst focusing on how to garner support from strategic partnerships to create meaningful impact. Thinking about various holistic solutions-based approaches to ecosystem well-being and resilient economic community development.
What inspires me: My love for nature! Understanding the intersection of nature, people and economies to create symbiotic relationships with ecosystem health and sustainable livelihoods. It is truly inspiring to bring a nature-positive development mindset towards communities and regions.
Career Highlights: Working with experts and colleagues to pioneer the development of the Industrial Hemp Value Chain in South Africa. Developed the first Hemp-centric educational module in South Africa and contributed towards international frameworks for Industrial Hemp. Working with honeybees, hemp and humans to create a biobased industry that combats resource-intensive, non-renewable industries.
Albertus Louw
Area of focus: My role is listening, dialoguing and crafting strategy to create scalable solutions. To ensure that needs are identified by the community and the most impactful solutions are developed and implemented.
What inspires me: People, cultures, regenerative solutions, stories and adventure. I am especially inspired by the ways humans move closer to our true place on this planet, in harmony with ourselves, one another and our environment.
Career highlights: Working with communities in disaster zones from war-torn areas in Africa and the Middle East to earthquakes and tsunamis in Turkey and Indonesia. As a filmmaker, I am constantly on adventures around the world, finding stories about people and the planet. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the arctic or the tropical jungles of central Africa. Through my work in Abundant Village, I get to continue my impactful journey with beautiful, diverse communities in unique, diverse parts of the world.
Sharne Bloem
Area of focus: As a female architect, I find fulfillment in creating sustainable and innovative solutions that positively impact communities. My love for regenerative designs and pragmatic problem-solving drives my career. Additionally, as a design-builder, I prioritize implementing sustainable construction practices, using renewable materials, reducing waste, and incorporating energy-efficient designs to contribute to creating healthier, more resilient communities.
What inspires me: My passion for hempcrete buildings, traveling, experiencing different cultures, and modular design fuels her creativity and drive. The combination of sustainable building materials, exploration of diverse cultures, and innovative design concepts inspires me to create unique and impactful architectural solutions that harmonize with the environment and cater to diverse needs and preferences.
Career Highlights: In my career, I have won multiple net-zero carbon design-build competitions internationally and successfully completed numerous projects using innovative materials such as shipping containers, hempcrete, light steel frame, bamboo, mass timber, adobe. Additionally, I won various renovation projects, and even constructed igloos in Lappland for the winters of 2016 and 2018. I am proud of these as they acknowledge my dedication to sustainability, creativity, and versatility in architectural design.
Jabu Zwane
Areas of focus: Part of my role is to forge partnerships between local communities, Abundant village and other stakeholders for sustainable projects development. Building/creating database knowledge to understand communities, how they function and their social issues.
What inspires me: History, Culture and the heritage of Amashangana people. Empowering communities.
Career highlights: As a businessperson, being involved in several community development projects addressing poverty in the area, brought about the curiosity as to why there is a lack of cohesion between the conservation business and the communities. One of my highlights is encouraging and creating platforms for local communities to be part of the value chain to improve social issues.
Advisors
We love to learn from the expertise of others. We surround ourselves with amazing people who have expertise in many of the issues and challenges we are addressing. Here are our inspiring, committed group of advisors:
Steve Collins - Africa Foundation, Africa Safari Foundation, expert in CPPPs (Community, Public, Private Partnerships)
Lisa Goosen – CEO, Tintswalo Game Reserves, animal activist, philanthropist
Dylan Mackenzie - Master connector, significant network throughout Africa
Professor David R. Katerere - Chair, PharmaConnect Africa; Professor, Pharmaceutical Science, Tshwane University of Technology (SA); Bioentrepreneur & Consultant; Rotarian
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead
Frequently Asked Questions
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We have assembled a talented team, partnering with successful NGOs and Foundations and work closely with each village to understand what they need most. We align our network of kind souls eager to address specific issues and we work with them to address the right solutions for each issue. We will implement, test and optimize in order to see what can affordably scale.
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Since every village or solutions within a village will be designed and run locally, we need enthusiastic support from the community. We need to work with a local NGO or Foundation that has all the relationships, connections and history with the community. We need to be able to offer solutions that are most needed by the community.
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After hundreds of hours of interviews to understand how to best create long-term, systemic change, we are focused on the following:
Listen: Deliver what has been asked for and will be supported long-term.
Dramatically lower costs: Use proven, scalable solutions to address critical issues and create prosperity.
Regenerative revenue: Generate enough income to cover the ongoing operating costs.
Locally led: Ensure local leaders are committed to the day-to-day operations of the solutions we deliver.
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Each country has their own politics, existing or new leadership, traditions, culture and opportunities. Some of these solutions, while simple on their value, may impact established solutions and supply chains. Change can be viewed negatively.
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We like to align their passions with our projects. We invite them to contribute not just money, but time and resources to support a greater impact. We discuss the metrics to measure success and track those to provide periodic reporting.