Sarah and Aidan offer Jon an audience as he shares the origins and mission of the Tracking Connections Podcast to lift up and honor the amazing projects of so many people around the world.

Jon shares the story of how his research began from reflecting on his teen years and the values and ethics that he shared with his friends who were also mentored by Tom Brown, Jr. in the 1970's. Though Tom never told any of them directly to care for nature and the future of our planet, all the teens reflected to one another that this was how they felt. They could not understand why all their friends in high school did not share their concern for the way construction was changing the land.

Jon took this question further, "What had Tom done for them? Could we find a way do this for many others?" This began the research and development that led to the founding of the first project to mentor children in the way that Jon was mentored.

Soon after founding this first program, Jon met Ingwe, an elder raised by the San Bushman and Akamba Tribe in Kenya. The two faced many challenges in the early years. From their collective effort emerged the Kamana Naturalist Training Program, and the Shikari holistic tracking training, bird language training and the 8 Shields and The Art of Mentoring. These models and principles have been taught all around the world and have collectively reached hundreds of thousands of children who Jon has never met. Surely, Jon's co-founder, the late Ingwe (1914 to 2005), is smiling down on us.

Visit https://www.livingconnection1st.net/ for more information about our work in nature connection and people connection.