Founding Director, Chief Vision Facilitator of GINHAWA Inc.
Ms. Leah Tolentino “breathes” GINHAWA every day as she learns and teachers the essence of well-being that embraces the personal, societal and ecological.
Leah is a teacher’s teacher on spirituality and transformation, an artist-healer who uses the psycho-soma-spirit approach, a well-being consultant, guide-mentor for those seeking a conscious path in the work of healing and renewal.
Ms. Leah’s journey from chronic ailment and auto-immune disorder to long-term healing enabled her to discover inherent well-being capacities. After bouncing back to health, she committed to a path of facilitating healing to a wide variety of client groups, including those who were in dire need of healing, like abused children, women in crisis, and people living with HIV+/AIDS.
These experiences honed her competencies and compassion as she embarked on studies and immersive lessons in the fields of spirituality, holistic health, creative expressions, body-mind-spirit studies, social sciences, arts, and integral inner work.
Leah has a master’s degree in Creation Spirituality from Naropa University, based in Colorado, USA, and has completed the course work in the doctoral program of Applied Cosmic Anthropology at the Asian Social Institute (ASI).
Leah completed a graduate certificate program at the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, USA, and has finished a Specialty Certificate in Sacred Dance (Healing, Renewal, Transformation) at the Center for Arts. Religion and Education, an affiliate center of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, USA. She has studies in Pastoral Psychology (CEFAM-Ateneo) Oriental Healing Arts and Indigenous Sacred ways with wisdom keepers from various Philippines cultural communities.
As the principal program developer of GINHAWA, she has conceptualized and implemented well-being retreats, creative culture-affirming classes, transformative sessions for the Filipinos both locally and overseas, for over two decades. And brought GINHAWA programs to Filipinos, where and when it mattered most: like de-stressing sessions for frontliners during the pandemic, post-trauma, and healing sessions for those severely affected by super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan, international name), a month after it struck the hardest in Eastern Visayas.
As a well-being consultant and resource person to various organizations, Leah has developed and conducted programs for government and corporate executives, NGOs, humanitarian organizations, universities and educational institutions, religious and faith-based organizations.
Currently a faculty in the post-graduate program of the Asian Social Institute, part-time faculty of the Institute of Formation for Religious Studies, resource-person/faculty at the Institute of Formation, Fondacio-Asia. She was featured in the book “101 Outstanding Filipino Achievers”, published in 2009.
