A New Time of Alliance: The Arrival of Chief Nixiwaká Brasil Yawanawá to the WEF
Program:
17:30 18:15
Xander Learmont
Initiations into Indigenous and Mystical Traditions
A Photographic Journey
18:40 - 19:30
Abhishek Borkar and Pt. Rajkumar Misra
Classical Indian Concert - Sarod and Tabla
19:45
Ben De Loenen
A New Time of Alliance
Founder - ICEERS
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Free food and snacks
Drinks available at the bar (Twint)
Event information:
Chief Nixiwaká Brasil Yawanawá, the maximum authority of the Yawanawá people of the Brazilian Amazon, and an established activist, rights defender, and spiritual leader, is traveling to Switzerland to engage with the global community of leaders, innovators, and change-makers gathering around Davos. He is accompanied by an international team working in close relationship with Indigenous leadership.
Chief Nixiwaká and his team arrive carrying both a mission and an invitation. A mission shaped over decades and grounded in a nine-year Indigenous-led global process involving representatives from 34 Indigenous nations. And an invitation to participate in the co-creation of a living process for the construction of a greater “We”, one that unites the strengths and knowledge systems of our worlds on a collaborative path of resistance, renewal, and shared stewardship.
They are coming to meet in synergy with change-makers, philanthropists, visionaries, and leading thinkers and do-ers who recognize that the challenges of our time demand new forms of alliance-building. Forms rooted in ancestral sciences that have been systematically marginalized and excluded from dominant economic, political, and social decision-making spaces—despite being rigorously tested over millennia. Through this visit, Chief Nixiwaká and the team represent a collective initiative committed to correcting this historic imbalance through real, collaborative action.
Zurich Pre-Event: Opening the Space
The Zurich pre-event, held the day before Chief Nixiwaká's arrival, opens the space around this larger process, marking the beginning of a week-long presence across Davos and the unDavos event ecosystem. It offers a first opportunity to encounter the deeper context of this visit and to explore how this living process can be meaningfully woven into the global conversations taking place throughout the week.
Benjamin de Loenen (ICEERS), working in close collaboration with the Nixiwaká Institute and Indigenous leader Benki Piyãko’s Yorenka Tasorentsi Institute on the construction of the Indigenous-led Global Forum planned for 2026 in Girona, Spain (World Ayahuasca Forum), will open the Zurich gathering by situating why this moment matters now, how this visit fits within the wider trajectory of global alliance-building, and by inviting engaged dialogue on how to join forces in practice. He will be joined by additional leading change-makers (to be confirmed).
During Davos Week
This opening moment sets the tone for a broader presence throughout WEF week, including:
Participation in Mental Health Day, alongside Paul Stamets and Future of X
Conversations on “The Future of Humanity: A New Time of Alliance”
Dialogues and encounters across Davos, unDavos, and partner venues
Throughout the week, participants are invited not only to listen, but to engage, helping to weave relationships, commitments, and collaborations that can carry this global, Indigenous-led alliance-building process forward beyond Davos.
The Intention
To introduce the deeper purpose and significance of Chief Nixiwaká's visit
To gather people with real influence, leverage, and curiosity who are open to joining a different kind of transformative pathway
To begin cultivating the synergistic relationships required for meaningful weaving—and for exploring collaboration between Indigenous knowledge systems and contemporary global initiatives
This is not a night of polished speeches.
It is a space for real conversation, unexpected connections, and the emergence of new threads within a living alliance.
If you are part of the WEF or unDavos ecosystem, or work at the intersection of consciousness, sustainability, mental health, culture, and long-term planetary stewardship, this gathering is an invitation.
Enter the Weaving of Worlds.
For a full overview of panels and gatherings during WEF week, visit our Luma unDavos calendar.
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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Ben DeLoenen
A New Time of Alliance
Founder - ICEERS
For the past 23 years, Benjamin De Loenen’s work has been dedicated to addressing critical challenges related to the globalization of ayahuasca and other traditional Indigenous medicines. His deepest commitment is to ensure that the path of collective stewardship strengthens all communities involved, fostering alliances between ancestral and Western knowledge systems in service of collective healing and a regenerative future. In 2009, Benjamin founded the non-profit ICEERS (iceers.org) as the principal vehicle to bring this mission into the world. From 2022, he served as Interim Co-Director of the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund (IMC.fund) during its formative years, until Indigenous Co-Directors assumed leadership in 2024. He has also served on the Board of the Global Ibogaine Therapist Alliance, is the author of the documentary Ibogaine – Rite of Passage (2004) and Ayahuasca Reframed (2012), is a TEDx speaker, and has lectured at conferences worldwide. Since 2019, Benjamin has focused on deepening his study of Indigenous onto-epistemologies through alliances with ancestral knowledge holders, with a commitment to bringing his life, relationships, and work into alignment with the learnings of this path.
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Xander Learmont
Initiations into Indigenous and Mystical Traditions
A Photographic Journey
Xander was born and raised in South Africa and has spent his adult life living in the UK, Sweden and Switzerland, where he has been for the past twenty years. His life journey and devotion to healing through plant medicine work has led him to establishing relationships with various indigenous communities, where he is a student of plant medicine ceremony, rituals and rites of passage. In his work he emphasizes the importance of incorporating what he has learned from his elders in Ecuador, Mexico and Gabon, and serves to bring this knowledge into our cultural context and healing spaces.
Xander is a certified psychedelic therapist, and graduate of the AWE Foundation Psychedelic Therapy Training program, where he completed his training in indigenous knowledge, transpersonal psychotherapy, and modern psychedelic and consciousness research.
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Abhishek Borkar and Pt. Rajkumar Misra
Indian Classical Concert
On Sarod
Abhishek Borkar is a leading Indian classical sarod virtuoso of his generation, celebrated for his depth of raga expression, tonal clarity, and refined musical intelligence. A prodigious talent trained rigorously in the guru–shishya parampara, he is closely associated with the Maihar lineage, carrying forward a tradition known for its balance of technical brilliance and emotional gravitas. Abhishek’s performances are marked by patience, introspection, and a rare ability to unfold a raga with both power and subtlety, earning him acclaim across India and on international concert stages as a serious, contemplative voice in contemporary Hindustani classical music.
On Tabla
Pt. Rajkumar Misra is a highly respected master percussionist in the Hindustani classical tradition, renowned for his refined rhythmic sensitivity and expressive accompaniment. Rooted in decades of performance and teaching, his playing embodies both technical precision and profound musical intuition. Through tabla and classical percussion, Pt. Misra supports and elevates melodic expression, creating rhythmic foundations that are simultaneously grounding, dynamic, and deeply attuned to the inner dimensions of sound.