We believe we all have the potential to be mentors for each other. The most effective mentoring is multi-directional between groups of committed explorers. One of our intentions is that the Haven apprentices will become highly effective and compassionate mentors as a result of their experiences during their apprenticeships.

Claudia L'Amoreaux (yes, that's her with the snorkel) is the founder of Haven and coordinating mentor for the apprentices. She is assisted by numerous guest mentors. Her collaborators-- Barbara Vogl, Tamara Dunaye, Wes Beach, and Zohara Mapes--will be participating throughout the sessions.

Claudia has 25 years of experience in edge-ucation (she invented the word). She was active in the free school movement of the '70s, teaching in a range of free schools and public "open classrooms." She was involved in the Growing Without Schooling movement from the beginning in the late '70s--she coordinated a network of unschoolers in Northern California and eventually founded the Whole Earth Learning Center (1986), a resource center for parents, children and educators. The WELC offered innovative explorations for young people, a resource library, and support groups for parents.

In 1992, Claudia designed and created the Journey Project with fellow mentors Jim Schliestett and Dan Mapes at Digital Media Studios in Santa Cruz, California. Teenagers apprenticed full time in a multi-media studio instead of attending high school. The project culminated in the design and implementation of a virtual reality studio by the apprentices at SIGGRAPH, a yearly computer graphics conference. Since then she has coached and supported numerous young people and their families--unschoolers, home schoolers, alternative school and public school students who are traveling a path of self-directed learning. She has a tremendous faith in the innate love of learning and a fierce dedication to freedom for young people to determine and direct how and what they want to learn. She recognized in the Internet the possibility of creating entirely new forms of global learning environments and has been working toward that vision since she first got online in 1985. Most recently she was Education and Global issues channel editor for Deja News. Before that she was Producer and Editorial Director of the Planetary Dialogues website. Planetary Dialogues was given a GII (Global Information Infrastructure) Education Award in March of '98 as one of the top 50 education sites on the web.

Claudia is a parent. Her daughter Zoe is now 21 and is a guest mentor and contributing graphics designer of Haven. They have worked together on a series of amazing projects ranging from designing a prototype web site in Rio de Janeiro for the Mebengokre Indians of northern Brazil to making a video on sustainable farming in Fiji for the Zeri Project to real-time video performance in the Cyberlab Ensemble with jazz musician Ornette Coleman.