Our Teachers

Our teachers at Botswana Dhamma & Mindfulness Centre bring wisdom, compassion, and dedication to guiding others on the path of mindfulness and inner transformation. With diverse backgrounds and deep experience in meditation and Dhamma practice, they offer a supportive and nurturing presence for all who seek to deepen their understanding and connection to the teachings. Together, they create a welcoming space where learning, growth, and community thrive.

Imee Contreras, CMT-P

Co-Founder & Guiding Teacher

Imee is recognized as a leading mindfulness teacher in the Philippines and across Asia. She is the founder of Mindfulness Asiaand Nibbāna Forest Refuge. She is a co-founder of Philippine Insight Meditation Community and Katahimikan; Philippine Day of Mindfulness. She is a mentor for Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach's Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program and the Power of Awareness at Sounds True, an authorized teacher at UCLA Health, a Cross-Cultural Mindfulness Teacher and Board Member of Braided Wisdom, and a visiting teacher at East Bay Meditation Center. She is a founding Advisory Council member of the Global Compassion Coalition.

She graduated from Spirit Rock's Community Dharma Leadership Program, UCLA's Training in Mindfulness Facilitation program, and is an IMTA-Certified Mindfulness Teacher. She develops and facilitates mindfulness programs for companies, schools, and events; both locally and internationally. She volunteers to teach incarcerated women serving life imprisonment and also supports abused women and children in the Philippines.

imeecontreras.com

Dr. Toyin Ajao

Teacher

Dr Toyin Ajao (Moon Goddess\Gyspy Orisha/Dr Witch) is a Restorative Healing Researcher and Practitioner at Ìmọ́lẹ̀ of Afrika Centre (ìAfrika), founded to spread healing soulidarity and Ubuntu culture across Africa. She further provides wholistic wellbeing, systems change leadership, and organisational strengthening services at Moon Goddess Consults using neo-ancient healing tools and strategies such as movement flow, dance, music therapy, meditation/breathwork and Ubuntu healing circles for lasting relational, cultural and systems transformations.

Her main multidisciplinary foci are at the intersection of intergenerational healing, environmental regeneration, ancestral technologies, posthuman security, healing justice, conflict transformation, systems change leadership, visionary/intersectional feminism, and gender and sexual rights. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Pretoria, an MA in Conflict, Security and Development from King's College London and a BSc in Accounting from Obafemi Awolowo, Ile-Ife.

Her empirical research, praxis, and activism spanned two decades and cut across academia, civil and political societies, LGBTQIA+ and feminist organisations. She is a proud globetrotter and an award- winning international blogger with several scholarly and creative publications to her credit. Her innovative work has been published by Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, Matatu Journal, Kujenga Amani, African Studies Association, Pambazuka and so on. She remains an alumna and a Research Associate of the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London.

Venerable Bhante Y. Wimala

Advisor & Spiritual Teacher

Venerable Bhante Y. Wimala has been a Buddhist monk for 48 years, known throughout the world as a compassionate spiritual teacher and tireless humanitarian, with projects and teaching programs all over the world.

Unlike most monks who wander in their homelands or live ascetically in monasteries, Bhante has been called to spend his life traveling around the world to teach and to heal and to bring peace to the people of our planet. He has forged friendships across the globe and has been involved in numerous projects involving restoring entire villages in Sri Lanka ravaged by the tsunami and war, earthquake relief in Haiti and Nepal, and cyclone relief in Bangladesh. He personally oversees countless projects across the globe, especially in Africa and Asia, to restore eyesight, bring medical supplies and wheelchairs where there were none, educate youth, build orphanages and hospitals, bring water to villages high in the mountains of Nepal, cut off after the earthquake, create job training for women, homes for the homeless and bring hope to prisoners and suffering individuals around the world.

His Holiness the Dali Lama says of Bhante: “Bhante Wimala’s heartfelt concern for the suffering and the simple remedies he draws from the Buddha’s teachings will be a source of strength for everyone confused by the pressures of modern life.”

His Holiness The Dalai Lama also writes of Bhante: [He] “presents the teachings the Buddha gave over 2,500 years ago as if they had been given to address the needs of people today. His counsel to those who meet him is drawn from his own experience and the inspiration he has gained from studying and contemplating the Buddha’s teachings on a simple and practical level. [Bhante] explains how meditation functions as a healing force for the mind; he also discusses global problems such as the pollution and degeneration of our environment.” Since 1986 Bhante Wimala has being the Chairperson and Spiritual Director of Triple Gem Buddhist Society, the Center for Conscious Evolution in Princeton, New Jersey and Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He also was the Founding Director and Spiritual Advisor of Prison Ministries which provided educational and spiritual support programs in many state prisons in the USA.

Following are some of his appointments and positions

1994. Received the appointment of Chief Sangha Nayaka (honorary leadership position) of the USA and Canada by the supreme Council of Monks of the Samastha Amarapura Sangha Sabha of Sri Lanka.
1998.Established the Lotus Buddhist Center in Prague, Czech Republic and served as the founding spiritual teacher
2001. Founded the Samadhi Buddhist Meditation Centre in Tupadly (Prague) Czech Republic and still serves as the spiritual Director and teacher.
2000. Since 2000, Bhante has being serving as the head Monk and Spiritual Director of Nairobi Buddhist Temple, Nairobi, Kenya.
2010. Bhante was reinstated as the Chief monk for the USA by the supreme Sangha council. He was also appointed as the Chief Sangha Nayaka of the Czech Republic and Kenya.

Bhante Wimala is the recipient of many awards for his peace efforts and humanitarian activities, including:

2007. The Global Peace Award in 2007 from the Peace Center in the United States and the metropolitan Christian Council of Philadelphia.
2007. Humanitarian award from the members of parliament, Kenya
2008. Bhante received the Ambassador for Peace Award, offered by the Universal Peace Federation, an international and inter-religious federation for world peace.
2009. Bhante Wimala was awarded the Health Services Excellence Award from the Ministries of Health and Resettlement of the government of Sri Lanka.
2010, the Upcountry Amarapura Supreme monks Council of Sri Lanka awarded Bhante the prestigious ‘Samadutha” Ambassador of Peace Award.
2014. Humanitarian service award, Asian Development Foundation collage, Tacloban City Philippines.
2017. Humanitarian award, Asian Development Foundation Collage, Tacloban City, Philippines

nairobibuddhisttemple.org

Faith Galetshoge

Founder, Director & Teaching Assistant

Faith Galetshoge is the founder and Director of Botswana Dhamma & Mindfulness Centre. She has been a practicing Buddhist for over three decades and has participated in meditation retreats in Thailand and Myanmar. The experiences ignited a desire to share the inner peace, mindful healing and sense of well-being she experienced with others. She is passionate about using the Dhamma and mindfulness practices not only to make people feel good but also make positive changes in their lives.

Faith is currently undergoing Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach's Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program.

She is an avid reader, a great cook and a grandmother to four boys. She has a Bachelor’s in English Literature and a Master’s in Human Resources Development.