Dounia Saeme

Dounia Saeme, MA, polyglot citizen of the world, is an economist by training and a passionate facilitator. 

In 2016, while pursuing her PhD in Economics at UC Berkeley, Dounia recognized the need to break free from ubiquitous life-disconnected cultural patterns. Showing great courage, she decided to leave her PhD and embark on an experiential learning journey figuring out how to gracefully face the complex challenges of our time.

Dounia's focus shifted towards citizen-led food system research and community engagement in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. There, she formed a nutritional outreach team of six individuals facing employment barriers (including individuals with a history of addiction, mental illness and incarceration). Together, they established a procurement group that provided fresh produce to Vancouver DTES food providers and created an affordable produce market in Canada's poorest zip code.

To enhance her ability to engage and transform communities, Dounia trained in various facilitative modalities, such as Open Space Technology, Dynamic Facilitation, Systemic Constellation and ProSocial facilitation. She has organized and hosted over 20 smaller (25-60 participants) and larger scale (300+ participants) events designed to enable self-organizing action.

Currently, Dounia is dedicated to spreading social technologies that promote emotional intelligence and unlock the full potential of conscious leadership. As a Community Catalyst at ProSocial World, she bridges the gap between academic theory and practice, fostering collaboration and authentic environments for transformative action.

In her free time Dounia loves to grow food, go on nature adventures and play with natural fibers on the unceded Mi'kmaq territory of Southwest Nova Scotia where she now resides with her family.

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