Hawah Kasat is a celebrated global humanitarian, author, educator, non-profit leader, TEDx speaker, yogi, and a world leader in peacekeeping and conflict resolution. He has dedicated his life to teaching about solutions to violence and ways to peace and has traveled to over 44 countries to speak with those interested in creating a caring, sustainable, and equitable world. He has made appearances on XM National Satellite Radio, BBC, Fox News, NBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera.

In 2016, Hawah and OCU received the highest honor in Washington, DC, the prestigious Mayor’s Arts Award for Excellence in the Humanities. In 2018, he was awarded the National SHIFT Award for its pioneering work in integrating the healing arts with environmental justice. In 2019, Hawah was honored to receive Georgetown University’s Legacy Of A Dream Award at the Kennedy Center. The University presents the award annually to an inspirational emerging leader whose work embodies the values and spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 2020, Hawah was named to the prestigious Leadership of Greater Washington Class, a legacy network of private and public sector institutional leaders and influencers in the DMV area.

He has been a guest speaker at Yale University, George Washington University, U.C.L.A., University of Colorado, Rollins College, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, and Brown University, among many others. He has regularly featured as a speaker, performer, and workshop presenter for People to People International, the Congressional Youth Leadership Council, and the Children’s Defense Fund’s Freedom Schools. In the years prior, Hawah worked as an Americorps community organizer, peace and conflict resolution specialist, and mentor in Washington, DC’s most under-resourced neighborhood.

After graduating from American University with degrees in Peace and Educational Philosophy and Psychology, he was awarded a fellowship with the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation to work as a special youth representative to the United Nations and the World Conference Against Racism. 

Hawah is co-founder and former CEO of One Common Unity (OCU), a non-profit that supports a movement for peace education and the building of a non-violent culture through education, mental health care, and art. During his 20 years of leadership, OCU grew to over 35 full-time employees, operating in 24 schools, and serving over 40,000 youth and families. He has extensive experience with public speaking, media and press relations, fundraising, overseeing, and managing a multimillion-dollar annual budget, and expertise in board of directors’ growth and management, human resources, strategic partnerships, marketing and communications, budget oversight, program design and development, and risk management. 

For four years, he also directed the Peaceable Schools Program in D.C.’s largest public high school—and today continues to lead training for teachers and students in conflict transformation, trauma-informed care, positive youth development, mindfulness, social-emotional literacy, and the healing arts.
 Hawah is a certified Yoga Instructor who was trained and certified in Sivananda Yoga at the Yoga Vidya Gurukul, a world-renowned teacher training college in India. He holds a second 300-hour certification in the Jivamukti Yoga School and also holds a certificate from the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in trauma relief and healing. Hawah maintains a Vipassana Meditation practice, most recently sitting on a 20-day silent meditation retreat, and practices Kung Fu (specifically training in Baguazhang and Tai-chi styles). He has taught students from diverse backgrounds, including at the Washington Post, law firms, award-winning studios, festivals, conferences, youth recreation centers, and prisons.

   
He is a lululemon Legacy Ambassador, and a Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health (the largest yoga center in the United States) 2023-2024 Visionary and is regularly featured in their social media and e-newsletters to their hundreds of thousands of followers. Over the years, Hawah has authored four books, produced four documentary films, and released two music albums. He is the creator/editor of​ The Poetry of Yoga book anthology (published by White Cloud Press), which features Grammy award-winning musicians and master yoga teachers. His collaborative documentary film project, Fly By Light, received wide acclaim and awards while touring international film festivals.

Most recently, Hawah founded the Roots to Sky Sanctuary, a BIPOC-led and operated healing arts and regenerative farming center located in the mountains of West Virginia. Based at the headwaters of the Potomac River, Roots to Sky is stewarding 125 acres of land and pioneering neo-indigenous healing from intergenerational trauma outside of cities and immersed in nature.

In his spare time, Hawah enjoys finding new foods to mix with chocolate, climbing trees and buildings, doing handstands on furniture, hiking through mountains with flip flops, body surfing ocean waves, making animal sounds and bird calls, enjoying a glass of wine at high altitude, lighting candles in dark rooms, and traveling.