PARTNERS

The journeys and events of HOMEBOUND are created through dynamic partnerships between different people and the work that they are bringing to the world. As burning passions and the deepest inspirations are put together we find deeply creative and exciting journeys coming about.

 

Silas Beardslee was born in 1988 in Massachusetts, USA, the youngest of three. His family moved to rural New Hampshire when he was six years old and there he attended the Monadnock Waldorf School, in Keene, NH, and later High Mowing School in Wilton, NH. After graduating from High School and leaving the comforts of his parent’s nest, Silas worked and travelled for two years in the United States, Great Britain and Zimbabwe, before stumbling upon a bright orange flyer and deciding to take part in the first chapter of YIP. From there his biography took on a startlingly mobilized role, as he worked and ventured through broadened horizons. His work varied from digging ditches and painting houses, to organizing music festivals and teaching science, from pouring beers and working the door, to collaborating with rural Zimbabweans in creating a Learning Center Silas has lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and Orcas Island, in Washington State, Amsterdam, in The Netherlands and Rimbi, in Zimbabwe, with a brief stint in Dornach, Switzerland. He joined the Organizing Team of YIP from 2014 -16 with his now wife, Christianne. Currently they are living back in Amsterdam.
Matisse van Damme is someone who has a passion for people, he feels the most alive when he can stand in and build relationship with others. Since finishing high school he has taken the question “what does it mean to be myself?” as a leading investigation. “How can I be true to myself and how does that manifest itself?” Were questions he was holding. Upon his search for answers he set out on many journey’s, trainings and experiences, of which one of the more important one’s is the encounter with shamanism and mostly native American ceremony. In these ceremonies, nature has been at the forefront of his experience, and a steppingstone into himself. After finishing his studies at the Youth Initiative Program and the continuation of that experience in the form of self-directed studies, he came to realise that he was not only holding these questions for himself, but that he wanted to support others in these questions as well. He began to look for ways to develop those capacities. In this search he joined the Sacred Door Trail where they explored what being in the outdoors can mean for personal transformation and growth. This experience inspired him to continue and to acquire the skills to shape experiences, like being in the outdoors, that lead to personal transformation and day-to-day life change. For this he started studying experiential psychotherapy in the form of Dramatherapy at het Zuyd University. After three years of studying he is looking forward to letting these dreams come together and feels humbled to make this journey together with you.