John Bell an educator, activist, writer, and a Buddhist Dharma Teacher based in the Boston area. He came to social justice work through the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960s. He has 40 years of experience in the youth field as a teacher, counselor, community organizer, leadership trainer, and director. He is a founding staff member of three youth leadership organizations: Youth Action Program (in 1978) in East Harlem; Children of War (in 1984), an international youth leadership organization working with youth from 15 different war zones; and YouthBuild USA (in 1988), where he served as Vice President for Leadership Development and Training until 2015. He helped grow YouthBuild into an international nonprofit with 350 programs in 15 countries that works with young people who have dropped out of school and provides them with further education, leadership skills, and vocational training building tangible community assets like affordable housing. His has expertise youth leadership development, peer counseling and healing, and diversity, and has done training and consulting work for the Peace Corps in Africa and South America. Bell is also an ordained Buddhist Dharma Teacher in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. In this role, he has taught meditation, offered retreats, served on the boards of the North American Dharma Teachers Association; ARISE, the racial justice initiative; Earth Holder Community, the earth justice initiative; and most recently, the Beloved Community Circles, a mindfulness-based action network. In addition to published articles and handbooks, he wrote a book about YouthBuild (YouthBuild's North Star) and has a blog site called "Begin Within." Unbroken Wholeness is his attempt to combine social justice, emotional healing, and spiritual practice into a vision and a set of practical approaches for addressing the troubles of our beloved world in hopes of helping ushering in a more just, peaceful, and sustainable Earth.