Tending the Hearth: a testimony from Synergos' South Africa Director

Tending the Hearth: Reflections from the Global Hearth Summit in Ljubljana

Marlene Ogawa, Synergos Country Lead in South Africa, recently participated in the Global Hearth Summit. In the reflection below, she shares a powerful testimony about how inner wellbeing can nourish not just individuals, but the very systems they seek to transform. 

Synergos is one of the founding co-creator partners of The Wellbeing Project.  We have long recognized that inner work is not a detour from social change—it is its foundation.  A collective of seven organizsations have worked to create cultural and systemic change where we collectively saw that this needed the effort, insight and input of different groups.

The Wellbeing Project focusses on building a culture of inner wellbeing where changemakers have support to take care of themselves and where tending to their wellbeing profoundly helps both them and their work (us and our work).  

The Global Hearth Summit in Ljubljana, in June, hosted by The Wellbeing Project, helped cultivate a space that honored the understanding: that the wellbeing of those at the center of change is inseparable from the change itself.

In a world driven by urgency and overwhelm, the Hearth Summit offered something rare: a collective pause. Rather than another space to strategize or perform, it became a hearth—warm, honest, and radically human—where changemakers could return to themselves and each other.

At the heart of Synergos’ work lies a simple yet profound truth: transformation begins within. The Hearth Summit echoed this ethos, inviting participants to slow down, listen deeply, and reflect on how our inner landscapes shape the world we’re co-creating. Through silence, movement, and dialogue, we explored what becomes possible when leadership is grounded in presence, not pressure.

Wellbeing wasn’t a sidebar to strategy—it was at the center. Together, we asked: What patterns of harm do we see and experience even as we work for change? What wisdom does the body hold that our calendars forget? What if being—together, tenderly—was itself a form of impact?

No easy answers emerged. However, we touched a shared recognition: that relational trust, inner connection, clarity, and the courage to stay with discomfort are not luxuries—they are conditions for enduring, regenerative change.

As the Summit’s embers continue to glow, we carry forward a commitment: to tend the inner fire with the same care we give to outer impact. Because how we do the work is the work. And only from this place can truly transformative relationships—and systems—take root.

Marlene Ogawa - Synergos Country Director, South Africa

Cover photo taken from the Hearth Summit Website.