Lena Lieberknecht’s adult life has always been defined by movement.

Lieberknecht is from a small town in Germany.

But her humanitarian work has taken her around the world: from Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to conflict zones in Syria, Sudan, Mozambique, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo—some of the world’s most fragile frontiers.

Somewhere along that journey, in a modest ashram tucked away in Black Forest, a mountain range in Germany, Lieberknecht encountered something that would fundamentally reshape the way she approached her life’s work: the Art of Living.

The beginning of a life in humanitarian work