Our Team

Founder, Global Center for Indigenous Leadership & Lifeways
Co-Founder, Wisdom Weavers of the World


  • Founder & President of GCILL

    Co-Founder & Visionary of WWW

    Unangan Elder

    My traditional name is Kuuyux, given to me by the last Kuuyux amongst my people, the Unangan, (Aleut), when I was 4. It means something like: an arm extended out from the body, a carrier of ancient knowledge, a messenger. Now, I am living that legacy and I carry messages from Indigenous Elders from many cultures. It is my mission, it is my passion, it is who I am.

    In 2017, I had a vision: bring together Indigenous Elders from throughout the world to answer two questions: what is the state of the world as we see it now? What must we be doing now?

    This vision became a reality within six months and we gathered at the Birthplace of the Souls, in Kauai, Hawaii in November of 2017. Now we are working to get the messages to the world that is needed now.

Core Staff

We envision a world where the voices of Elders shape the decisions that determine our collective future. Where every people, in every place, remembers its original instructions: to love Mother Earth, to care for one another, and to walk in balance with all life.

This is the world we are working toward — a global civilization in right relationship with the natural world: rooted in reciprocity, guided by Indigenous wisdom, and animated by the understanding that all life is sacred and interdependent.

A world where the ancient knowledge carried by Elders and wisdom keepers is recognized as the most vital intelligence of our time — not a relic of the past, but the living map for the future we must build together.

Interim Executive Director, Global Center for Indigenous Leadership & Life ways

  • Marituly Mejia is an indigenous rights advocate, cultural bridge-builder, and organizer with over a decade of relationship-building alongside native spiritual leaders, wisdom keepers, and elders across the Americas. Her work centers on the intersection of indigenous cultural preservation, ecological restoration, and intergenerational knowledge transmission — grounded in the understanding that we cannot restore culture without restoring our relationship to the earth, and vice versa.

    Born to Salvadoran immigrants, Marituly grew up held by two landscapes: rural farm life in El Salvador, where her grandmother first taught her to listen to the land, and the pulse of urban Los Angeles, where she learned to move between worlds. These roots shaped her into a living bridge between cultures and traditions. 

    As co-founder of Weaving Worlds Inc., a California-based 501(c)(3), she has cultivated long-standing partnerships with indigenous communities engaged in climate justice and land stewardship. Her collaborations have spanned ceremonial cultural exchange, the mentorship of indigenous artists, and community-led initiatives to restore both ecosystems and ancestral practices eroding under the pressures of displacement, extraction, and cultural erasure.

Office Manager, Global Center for Indigenous Leadership & Lifeways

  • Bio coming…

GCILL Vision Council Member

  • Unangan Elder, Alaska

    George was born and raised on St. George Island in Alaska of the Unangan people, and is a life-long friend of Ilarion. He graduated with BS degree from Southwestern College in Winfield, KS. He’s been married for 50 years to Leonella Fratis of St. Paul Island in Alaska. He has five children and several grandchildren and great grandchildren.

VISION COUNCIL

GCILL is guided not by a conventional board, but by a Vision Council — a circle of trusted wisdom carriers, advisors, and allies whose collective discernment helps determine the direction and integrity of the organization.

The Vision Council serves as the living compass of GCILL. Its members bring a diversity of lineages, expertise, and perspective to the questions that matter most: What is the Earth asking of us right now? Where must GCILL focus its energy?

This council participates actively in major organizational decisions — including the shape of our initiatives, our partnerships, and our long-term strategy — ensuring that GCILL remains accountable to the communities and the vision it was called to serve. Rather than governing by institutional procedure alone, the Vision Council holds space for listening deeply, speaking truth, and moving together toward right action.

GCILL understands itself as an organism, not merely an organization — responsive, adaptive,

alive. The Vision Council is its heartbeat.

GCILL Vision Council Member

  • Educator | Historian | Activist | Kaua’i, Hawai’i

    Twenty years as a free-lance photojournalist working for publications such as Time, Life and National Geographic.

    Hawaiian Studies Kumu of Island School on Kaua‘i, Kumu Hula of Na Pua O Kamaile, Kaua‘ coordinator for the Department of Education’s Hawaiian Studies Kupuna Program, Kumu Kapa on Kaua‘i who has taught many hundreds of students & team members of the Kulia i Ka Nu‘u Project at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Founding member and Past-President of Na Pali Coast Ohana, a grassroots non-profit foundation dedicated to the preservation of the natural and cultural resources of the Nāpali Coast State Park, Kaua‘i Hawai‘i. Emau‘ana ke o ka ‘aina i na, hanauna o kawa mamua. “Preserving the life of the land for future generations.” The work at Nualolo Kai by the combined efforts of the Ohana, DLNR and State Parks is considered one of the most successful curatorship programs in Hawai‘i. She serves on the Garden Island Resource Conservation and Development board and has worked tirelessly for years to restore and preserve culturally significant sites.

GCILL Vision Council Member

  • Woodland Cree from the Sucker Creek Cree First Nation | Northern Alberta, Canada

    Lewis Cardinal is a communicator and educator from the Sucker Creek Cree First Nation in Treaty No. 8 in northern Alberta, Canada. For over three decades, his leadership has spanned local, national, and global advocacy roles, particularly in promoting Indigenous rights, cultural revitalization, urban Indigenous advocacy and capacity development, and interfaith relationship building. His contributions have been recognized with honours such as two Queen Elizabeth II medals (Diamond and Platinum Jubilee), the Indspire Award for Public Service (a recognition by Indigenous Peoples of Canada), the Province of Alberta‘s Centennial Medal for Human Rights and Diversity, and an honourary Doctorate of Sacred Letters from St. Stephen’s College at the University of Alberta for his work in bridging cultural and faith divides. And in October 2025, Lewis was installed as the 11th Chancellor of St. Stephen’s College at the University of Alberta at Edmonton, Canada.

    These experiences inform every facet of his consulting and media production work, where he specializes in Indigenous education, Indigenous governance, and strategic communications, and project development. Above all, he remains guided by a lifelong commitment to nurturing sacred relationships among diverse communities and worldviews.

GCILL Vision Council Member

  • Executive Director | All One Sky Foundation

    All One Sky is a Canadian charitable organization that focuses on climate change and its impact on vulnerable populations. Helen has worked as a writer, editor and documentary film-maker for three decades. She worked with Susanne Swibold on films and community development projects on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska and Commander Islands, Russia. Helen has worked in the climate change field since 2001, communicating complex environmental issues to the public. She has a BA, University of Alberta and Bachelor of Journalism, Carleton University. She is a research associate at the Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary. Helen received a Ford Fellowship in environmental politics, University of California, Berkeley & 2 Mesa Refuge fellowships for environmental journalism.

GCILL Vision Council Member

  • Anita Sanchez, PhD, Nahua (Aztec), Toltec, & Mexican American, CEO & Founder of Sanchez Tennis & Associates, LLC and Founder of Living Indigenous Wisdom

    Anita Sanchez, PhD, Nahua (Aztec), Toltec, and Mexican American, inspires people to discover and trust their gifts so that they become a life-giving force to all, people and the earth.  Dr. Anita is an author, consultant, trainer, podcast host, speaker to Fortune 500 corporations, education, and non-profit organizations.  Anita bridges indigenous science and wisdom and Western science for individual to societal renewal focusing on leadership, diversity, equity, inclusion and cultural transformation. Board member of the Bioneers, Kinship Earth, member of the Transformational Leadership Council and Evolutionary Leaders. Auntie Dr. Anita is an Elder Council member of The Earth Rise Collective, The Wellbeing Project, GCILL - Wisdom Weavers of the World, and the Fire Circle Earth.  Author of seven books including her international award-winning book, The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times. Find Four Sacred Gifts podcast on your favorite podcast app, YouTube and the Be Here Now Network. Her recent awards include 2022 Mogul’s Top 100 DEI Leaders, 2020 Conscious Company Media “World Changing Woman” and 2020 World Woman’s Foundation “Woman of the Hour” #SheisMyHero campaign to inspire one million girls to live their dreams and leadership.  Anita leads an annual journey to the sacred headwaters of the Amazon, Ecuador, to learn from the Achuar and Sapara people, and the Rainforest.   

    Learn more:   www.Anita-Sanchez.com

GCILL Vision Council Member