About Beloved Community Circles

Learn about our work.

What Are Beloved Community Circles?

We are a decentralized network of people around the world who care about racial and climate justice. Local Circles are comprised of 5-12 individuals who commit to 1) practice mindfulness together, 2) care for one another, and 3) engage in social justice work together.

While BCC has its spiritual roots in the Plum Village tradition of Engaged Buddhism, the principles are fairly universal and so the model is being adapted by other faith-based groups.

Say no more - I'm in!

You Might Be Wondering…

What is the Beloved Community Circle Network?

We are a network of small (but mighty!) local groups of people who 1) practice mindfulness together, 2) care for one another, in times of joy and hardship, and 3) commit to taking mindful action together to address racial injustice and the climate crisis. Beloved Community Circles (BCC) emerged from the Earth Holders Community, the Plum Village climate justice initiative, and is envisioned as a form that supports people who wish to organize themselves toward what Thich Nhat Hanh calls the Action Dimension: moving towards alleviating suffering in the world through participation in social justice movements large and small, rooted in mindfulness and ethics.

What is the Plum Village Community?

The Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism was founded by the Buddhist monk Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, and is focused on cultivating mindfulness and practicing a set of ethical guidelines called the Five Mindfulness Trainings, all of which are aimed at reducing suffering in oneself and in the world.

What is mindful action?

In his teachings, Thich Nhat Hanh often emphasized the importance of using mindfulness practices to strengthen our capacity to take action to sustain and protect life in the world. Our culture tells us that in order to make a difference, we need to overextend, rush, and act with urgency. While the climate crisis we find ourselves in at this time is indeed an emergency, Buddhist teachings tell us that we will be most effective taking action to prevent crisis when we can think with clear, focused minds, cultivated through dedicated mindfulness practices.

Okay, how can I get started? 

So glad you’re interested in learning more about the initiative! Here are a couple of ways to get started. 
  • Head over to our handbook to get a comprensive overview. 
  • We offer an annual introductory onboarding training which happens each Sept-October. In the meantime, there are quarterly only "Introduction to Beloved Community Circles" to hear about the basics. Please email us if you’re interested in participating in one of these introductory sessions. 
You are welcome to begin the process of starting a Circle even before participating in the annual onboarding training. Begin by identifying one or two friends with whom you can imagine committing to regular gatherings to practice, check in, and take action together. The handbook has suggested guidelines to set up a structure for your meetings, actions, and progress evaluation.
If this feels overwhelming, know that you’re not alone! Committing to a path of engaged spiritual practice and work in the world can feel intimidating. Email us to schedule a consultation with our program director to brainstorm ways to get started.

Meet Our Core Team

The Beloved Community Circles has a steering committee, which we call a Caretaking Council.

  • Founding Member

    Melanie Anne Gin (she/her and they/them) has been a member of the caretaking council for Beloved Community Circles since December 2021. She is a Plum Village sangha builder and received lay ordination into the Order of Interbeing in 2023, with the dharma name True Light of Aspiration. Melanie finds joy in creative practices, including poetry, essays, ceramics, and printmaking. 

    Melanie is currently an Associate Director of Solutions Engineering at Code for America, where they work with state and local governments to support community wellbeing and equity. They are also a trained facilitator of the Community Resiliency Model, and have supported workshops on trauma and resilience across the United States, Israel, and Palestine. 

    Melanie was born in California to a family of Chinese and Japanese roots, and grew up with class and educational privilege in a San Francisco suburb. She lives on the Indigenous lands of the Chochenyo Ohlone people (Oakland, California, United States). 

  • Program Director

    Coryna Ogunseitan (they/them and she/her) is the program manager of Beloved Community Circles, where she focuses on developing and implementing programming to support the enormously diverse group of people who comprise new and existing Circles.

    Coryna is also a PhD researcher in the UCSF/UC Berkeley Joint Program in Medical Anthropology. Their research focuses on the impacts of climate change on mental health and how climate change reshapes affective relationships with the natural world. Prior to joining the program, Coryna completed a Masters of Social Welfare from UC Berkeley, where she focused on providing behavioral health care to low-income queer and trans communities. After graduating from Yale with a bachelor’s degree in Literature, Coryna served as a Princeton in Africa Fellow, where they taught and administrated college preparation courses at the Ashinaga Africa Initiative, a scholarship program for highly talented, orphaned students from across the African continent. She then taught English in Curitiba, Brazil, through the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship Program.

    Coryna’s passions in life include spending time with her loved ones, being in the sun, practicing yoga, following The Real Housewives franchises (Beverly Hills and Potomac), lying down, reading, writing, and teaching!

  • Founding Member

    John Bell is an ordained Buddhist Dharma Teacher in the Plum Village tradition of Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh. He has been facilitating the Mountain Bell Sangha in the Boston area since 1997, and offers retreats around the country. He has served on the Care Taking Council (CTC) of the North American Dharma Teachers Sangha, on the core group of ARISE, the racial justice initiative, and on CTC of Earth Holder Community, the earth justice initiative of Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, and most recently, the Beloved Community Circles network. In recent years, as part of his environmental work, he has been arrested twice with a group of local faith leaders for protesting the installation of a fracked gas pipeline near Boston, MA.

    In his wider work life, he has 40 years of experience in the youth field as teacher, counselor, community organizer, leadership trainer, director, and father. He is founding staff member of three youth leadership organizations: Youth Action Program (in 1978) in East Harlem; Children of War (in 1984), an international youth leadership organization; and of YouthBuild USA (in 1988). Until his recent retirement, John was the Vice President for Leadership Development at YouthBuild USA (www.youthbuild.org), an international nonprofit with 350 programs in 15 countries that works with young people who have dropped out of school and provides them with further education, vocational training building tangible community assets, and leadership skills. He is a nationally recognized trainer and consultant in the areas of youth leadership development, peer counseling and healing, and diversity. He has done training and consulting work for the Peace Corps in Africa and South America. His is author of published articles and handbooks. He is the author of YouthBuild’s North Star, and his most recent book, Unbroken Wholeness: Six Pathways to the Beloved Community. His blog is “Begin Within,” www.beginwithin.info.

  • Caretaking Council Member

    Vivien Roman-Hampton is an Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and the founder of Activated By Wellness, a group mental health practice dedicated to serving historically underserved communities for over half a decade.

    Vivien obtained her BA in Psychology from UNLV, a graduate certificate in Women in Politics and Public Policy from UMASS Boston, and her MSW from Salem State University. This upcoming Fall, she will be embarking on her PhD journey at UConn where her focus of research will be mindfulness. She is already working alongside faculty on integrating mindfulness into education which is evident in her current endeavor: collaborating on a grant to create a critically engaged mindfulness curriculum tailored for BSW students.

    In her role as the Director of Outreach and Teacher Development at the Mindfulness Institute for Emerging Adults, Vivien has spent the last six years honing her skills as a mindfulness facilitator, teaching others to be mindfulness teachers, developing mindfulness curricula and fostering growth and awareness among young adults.

    Vivien is part of the Hopping Tree Sangha located in Amherst, Massachusetts and has recently been ordained into the Order of Interbeing, receiving her Dharma name of True Presence of Compassion. She also serves on the board of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and is their volunteer librarian.

    When she isn't working, Vivien spends time with her family in the woods of Western Massachusetts.

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Your tax exempt contribution helps us bring expert trainers in mindfulness practice and organizing skills. It also supports our small staff and covers other necessary administrative services (like this awesome website!).