More About the Ekaya Institute

The Ekaya Institute is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established in 1985. For over 15 years we have been working with young people in programs designed to maximize potential, build self-esteem, and provide education in nutrition, environmentalism, and multimedia production. The TAFB Campaign is the current focus of our non-profit organization.

The Ekaya Institute has been busy over the years and has conducted a wide variety of programs to serve our purpose including:

• Sailing trips for youth that involved heavy weather sailing to battle the elements and gain self-esteem while learning to work together. Groups included gang members from Los Angeles, teenagers and children.
• Inspiring and training young artists: With support from several printing businesses we conducted courses for young artists in fine art print making. In one of the programs we built a wooden etching press after a design based on the presses of the Old Masters.
• Summer Camp Wilderness Adventure Programs: These programs were designed for high school youth to expose them to hiking, camping, free-style mountain climbing, and cliff diving in rites-of-passage type adventures. We brought together inner-city and suburban youth in an environment where they worked together, learning team-work and gaining self-esteem. We also taught the importance of living in a manner that supports and sustains the natural environment.
• Living Foods Education: This initiative was training with a purpose for high-school and college students. Students were trained in online research, website development, graphic arts, computer animation, videography, film-making, and Internet marketing to develop a Internet based campaign to share information on the importance of eating a predominantly whole foods diet.
• Living Foods Education Retreats: Our first retreat trained and certified over 60 people in raw/living foods preparation at The Ekaya Institute's month-long "Back to the Garden" retreat.

The founders of our organization embody a passion for health, maximizing potential in young people, communication and education via the Internet, and developing a new synthesis of art and advertising via a dynamic in-house multimedia production facility. Ekaya Institute owns a state of the art mobile Macintosh based digital video studio, complete with music, video, animation, and special effects production capabilities. (In 2001 we put 4 students through animation and film college programs).

Ekaya Institute's staff, board and volunteers also bring a wide range of talents in the areas of production, advertising, and creativity. Our advisory board includes two MDs who are prominent in the health education field.

Storm Talifero, co-founder of Ekaya Institute, is the creator of the Institute’s current initiative, the "Take A Fruit Break" campaign, and brings a wealth of talent to help lead this media based campaign. Talifero’s primary work has been in fine art as an award winning artist and illustrator but he has also mastered the digital environment from graphic arts to videography and computer animation. Talifero has also spearheaded research in the areas of combining fine art and technology to develop new methods of animation. These methods bring characters up to the level of quality of the fine art backgrounds used in certain animated films. Talifero has produced commercials for dot-coms such as HealthCentral.com, eBiznet.com, and ZAuction.com as well as productions for institutions such as the Ventura Board of Education and Santa Barbara City College. He also served during the 1980's as President of the Santa Barbara Arts Council.

Senior Advisory Board Member Leanne Terrace has an MBA graduate in marketing and business development. She has demonstrated initiative and leadership by developing teams and by planning, building and implementing new market strategies with a significant impact. Ms. Terrace has used her skills in executive capacities with United Way, Xerox, Anderson Consulting, and Alive Publishing.

Johanna (Jinjee) Talifero
Corporate Program Coordinator
Ekaya Institute
info@TakeAFruitBreak.com
http://www.TakeAFruitBreak.com

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