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. 

Johnnel helps bring about balance in the world in his different roles as a healer, a Traditional Medicine student, a GINHAWA, Inc. Board Officer, and a corporate leader for a tech firm. He leads in financial planning, institutional balance, and strategy for GINHAWA.

Johnnel holds a double degree in Business Administration and Accounting from the University of the Philippines, Diliman where he graduated with honors. He has over 10 years of experience in management consulting, big data, analytics, as well as strategy and operations - having served several US-based clients, which are part of Fortune 500.

He is a firm believer that 'The Filipino is World-class' so in his work he devotes a lot of his time to grooming and mentoring young talents from Manila, coaching them and leading them to drive successful business outcomes.

Outside of his regular day job, Johnnel is very much a student of life. He was first introduced to meditation at the age of eight through Hinga-Langin (breath-centered prayer). From childhood through adulthood, he was privileged to receive onsite lessons from a host of healer-mentor-teachers on varied fields, like intergenerational healing, psyche-soul link, financial literacy. The contrast he witnessed in human dynamics opened his eyes to the need and importance of balance and compassion. Johnnel participated in several GINHAWA retreats, workshops, mentoring from the GINHAWA founder, Ms, Leah Tolentino for his spiritual anchoring and grounding. Today, Johnnel is a certified Guided Meditation Teacher, and generously shares meditation space in various settings.

Coming from a lineage of traditional/natural healers, Johnnel started to embrace his path of healing through the practice of Reiki. Today he is a Reiki Third Degree Practitioner and a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) student at Ateneo de Manila.