The Vegan Incubator

Creating compassionate pathways that facilitate transitions toward a vegan lifestyle.

EcoVilla San Mateo, Costa Rica. September 28th to October 9th, 2026

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Agenda

About

We are creating a vegan incubator that will take place in Costa Rica at Ecovilla San Mateo from September 28th to October 9th. The objective is to gather heart-centered practitioners of veganism to incubate a project that will help connect non-vegan persons to the natural world in compassionate and non-judgmental ways, so they can experience coherence between their love of nature and the food choices they make.

Those attending will commit to spending approximately 40 hours per week together (schedule TBD) to create this project and to continue building it after the incubator phase.

We will spend the first week activating compassion, connecting and creating intimacy with the more than human world; and building coherence within the group, and then transition into working on the project together during the second week.

We currently have the commitment of one amazing vegan facilitator and are looking for two more, and we hope to gather 8–12 participants in total.

The incubator space and facilitation will be offered as a gift, and there will be a shared cost for meals during our time together. Participants will be responsible for their own housing, though we will offer support in exploring housing options, and there may be some options available as a gift as well.

The incubator will be held in English, we expect participants to be able to communicate fluently in the language.

Note: This incubator is not a program for transitioning to a vegan lifestyle. It is designed for vegans who wish to co-create a project that compassionately supports others in transitioning toward vegan or plant-based ways of living.

If you have any questions please reach out to Jasmine at jasjor1@aol.com.

Applications

Applications are open to vegan prople who feel called to co-create, collaborate, and commit to the full duration of the incubator and the continuation of the project beyond it. If this feels resonant, we invite you to apply and explore whether this incubator is a good fit.

The deadline for submission of the application is July 15th, 2026 but we will be reviewing and accepting applicants as applications come in if we feel the applicant is a clear yes. We will notify all applicants by July 31st, 2026 to let you know if you have been accepted or not.

Once your application is accepted you will need to make a deposit of $222 to secure your spot. Your deadline for making the decision is August 5th, 2026. This deposit represents the travel and living expenses of the facilitators and potentially some of our shared food. Once we have exact expenses we will share what additional funds might be needed for the shared food. If for some reason the $222 per person covers more than anticipated we will decide as a group what to do with the left over funds.

Apply Here

Support

Facilitation

We are very fortunate to have gathered amazing facilitators for this incubator (their bios are below) and are now shifting our focus to gathering 8-12 participants.

Housing

If you live in the San Mateo area and would like to host a participant please email Jasmine at jasjor1@aol.com.

Financial Donations

This incubator is being offered in the spirit of gift and shared care. Donations help us cover basic costs, support facilitators, and make it possible for this work to remain accessible. If you feel aligned with this intention and have the capacity to contribute, your support is deeply appreciated. Please donate here:

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Co-Creators

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Jasmine Jordaan

Coherence Holder and Logistical Facilitator

I am so excited to be co-creating this amazing opportunity for vegans to come together. I have been vegan for over 17 years with a break about 9 years ago when I ate some dairy and fish for a few years and then saw the Octopus Teacher movie while lying in bed with Covid and had a realization that all creatures are sentient beings not only those on land (not sure why it took me longer to get that realization). Now being vegan is non negotiable. I was born in Jerusalem, Israel and grew up in an atmosphere of conflict and food was always a big part of feeling safe when alone and was the way love was shown in my family. I moved to the United States at the age of 11 and always wanted to help make peace in the Middle East. I went to law school with that in mind and became a certified mediator. However, life took me in a different direction and I realized being a lawyer wasn’t my path. After my second son was born almost 18 years ago I started noticing the energy of animal suffering in my body when I ate them and I just couldn’t keep eating animals. It was a huge shift for me since I was a big cook and all I knew how to make was animal heavy dishes. I spent a year learning to cook vegan and became a good vegan cook. My energy and my health improved dramatically with this switch and at the moment I am basically raw vegan doing juicing to heal my cysts which have been persistent at sticking around. Food is medicine and live food has been my greatest medicine so far. I have been involved in vegan education through creating an event for the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary and fundraising. I want to do more for the cause of helping raise awareness about animal suffering and its impact on the earth along with peacemaking within ourselves by being in peace with what we chose to put into our bodies and also being at peace with each other by coming from love and compassion. I feel this is needed on a global scale and I don’t want to do things alone. I want to do things in community together and thus this incubator was born :)

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Cherie Soria

Guest Facilitator

Cherie Soria is author of many books including Raw Food For Dummies and Raw Food Revolution Diet. Known as the Mother of Gourmet Raw Living Food, she founded Living Light Culinary Institute in 1998 and has trained many of the world’s top raw vegan chefs, culinary instructors and cookbook authors from over 65 countries. Cherie discovered the joys of trail running at age 65 and now, at 78 years young she is a competitive ultra runner, inspiring and motivating women to make health and fitness a way of life, no matter what their age. Since retiring full time in Costa Rica, Cherie has developed a passion to minimize global food transport and reduce food waste. She has been busy creating delicious recipes and new food preparation techniques using fresh, locally grown and indigenous plant foods; cutting down on the use of packaged foods; maximizing food storage to reduce waste, and promoting respect for the gifts of Mother Earth

Her Offering:

People care about animals, the planet, and their health—but they are reluctant to change unless the food wows them.

In Cherie’s workshop we will learn to win hearts with a 15-minute demo, 6 ingredients, and bold flavors—crispy, creamy, irresistible.

In this 2-hour class, Cherie will show us how to master simple, delicious demos, smart prep, and foolproof demo cards—so people taste it and say, “I could go vegan.”

Watch Living Light Culinary Institute - BIOVIE Interview of Cherie Soria here.

Darío Alvarado

Lead Facilitator

Darío has practiced veganism since 2011. He works at the intersection of education, liberation, and culture. His facilitation work has taken him to collaborate with diverse organizations around the world, shaping a practice rooted in holding space for self-discovery and authentic expression across a variety of formats.

Through this work, he focuses on creating the conditions for the emergence of contexts and infrastructures of compassion, play, and love, supporting individual and collective transitions from separation toward unity.

Ana Lucía Castaño

Facilitator

Lucía is a Colombian anthropologist and agroecologist — a bridge-builder between worlds: human and more-than-human, local and global, knowing and feeling.

As co-founder of Arare, she weaves food sovereignty and territorial care across more than 10 countries in Latin America and beyond, sustaining the living threads between communities, landscapes, and all beings that make their life possible. She collaborates as a conspirator in building new forms of socio-environmental education at Universidad del Medio Ambiente, and is trained in non-violent communication and mediation. For over 11 years, she has held transformative group processes — in forests, classrooms, fields, and ceremony.

Her facilitation draws from wisdom traditions across the Americas, from agroecology, and from what she calls gozo — the deep, embodied joy of being fully alive in relationship with all that is.

She comes to this incubator not from the safety of a fixed shore, but from the river itself: someone who has lived veganism, loves it, and is still finding her way back through the complexity of health and honest becoming. For a space about transitions, she brings a most essential gift — presence on the threshold. She offers her voice, her deep listening, her knowledge of living systems and culture change, and the felt, embodied knowing of how compassion and care actually move people towards inspired action.

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Amanda Wright

Facilitator

Amanda Wright is an Australian-trained practitioner of diagnostic Shiatsu, food medicine, corrective yoga and energy healing with more than 25 years’ experience supporting wholefood, plant-based living. A graduate of the Zen Renaissance College of Natural Medicine and Yoga, she specialises in chronic conditions and preventive care, guiding clients to restore balance within their internal ecosystems through nourishment and universal principles of health. After discovering during her travels that she felt healthier without meat, Amanda adopted a vegan lifestyle nearly 30 years ago, a decision later strengthened by her commitment to animal welfare and environmental sustainability.

Her work, shaped by personal recovery after serious accidents, integrates Oriental medicine, spiritual study and cellular healing practices. Internationally, she has taught yoga and facilitated peacebuilding initiatives across the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Australia. She co-founded SulhaOz, creating listening circles and cross-cultural dialogue programs, and contributed to projects including EcoMe Centre, supporting sustainability and reconciliation initiatives across divided communities.

The Vegan Incubator

About

Applications

Support

Co-Creators

Questions? Reach out to Jasmine at jasjor1@aol.com