Our Team
Karly (Thyesha)
Director
Become a Staff Member
Over the next few years, we hope to expand and accept many more children. We will need additional staff members to join our team. The more permanent team members we have, the more children we can give a home and future to. In Tashirat, staff members dedicate their lives to their spiritual path and spirituality through action –strengthening their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies through healthy, balanced lifestyles and service work in the orphanage as teachers and parents to our children.
If you would like to know more about our philosophy and what becoming a full-time, permanent staff member entails, please email us at tashiratmail@gmail.com
Brenda Jacobson (Thyera)
Founder
Thyera, founder of our Tashirat Orphange, was born in 1956, in Johannesburg, South Africa where she resided for the first 28 years of her life. She received her B.A. in Social Anthropology, Zulu and Psychology, with a post-graduate degree in Education. She acquired a wide variety of teaching experience in South Africa with the different sectors of the population and in numerous diverse teaching areas such as: literacy programs with the native Africans; Special Education with emotionally disturbed and disabled children; public school teaching; teaching the gifted; and directing a computer school for children. She emigrated to Los Angeles, USA in 1984, as she was strongly opposed to government policies such as apartheid in South Africa.
The same year that she emigrated, she qualified as a Yoga teacher, taking the Sivananda Teachers Training Course in Canada. She became a full-time Yoga teacher and rehabilitation therapist, before marrying and having her first child, Thyesha. When Thyesha was a toddler, Thyera opened a Yoga Center which was an immediate success in Mexico City. Three years later Thyera had her second child, Jonathan, and left the city due to his respiratory problems.
Shortly after, in 1994, she moved to Tepoztlan to open a Learning Center. Tashirat’s success has been thanks to all of the love and care that she has poured into Tashirat so intensively for so very many years. Thyera is a doctor of Naturopathy as well as a Cosmic Medicine doctor, which treats all five bodies (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and energetic) and very much takes into account the patient or student’s evolution. She lives in the Tashirat orphanage grounds with her daughter Thyesha, her son Jonathan, the Tashirat staff and Tashirat children.
Karly (Thyesha)
Director
Thyesha was born in 1987, in Los Angeles, California. She moved to Mexico with her parents when she was 2 years old. Since she was very young, Thyesha always led an independent life. She did home-based high school so she could have the freedom to pursue many other things at the same time, such as completing a Sivananda Yoga Teacher Certification at age 15 and joining a theatre group at 17. One year later she lived briefly in New York City, where she worked and studied art. Thyesha found that the more she traveled and the more people that she met, her appreciation grew for the life philosophy that the Tashirat staff and community shares. At age 18, she returned to Tashirat as a full-time staff member and became a mother to her first Tashirat children. Thyesha received her certification in Naturopathy at age 20 and married the same year. She has now raised several generations of Tashirat children, as well as her two biological children, and is planning to raise many more. Throughout the years, Thyesha has been trained by her mother and Tashirat founder, Thyera Arian, to direct Tashirat. Although Thyesha now directs and oversees all Tashirat areas, her main focus is spiritual and emotional body work and training with staff and children.
Jonathan
Jonathan was born in 1992, in Mexico City, Mexico. Jonathan is the son of Tashirat’s founder, Thyera Arian and Thyesha’s younger brother. Although Jonathan is not a staff member, his love for Tashirat and his expertise have made him an invaluable member of our team. While growing up in Tashirat, Jonathan was always a beloved older brother to our first generation of children and since then has become like an uncle to all following generations. At 16 years old, Jonathan completed high school and went on to earn his degree in Touristic Business Administration, graduating top of his class with honors. He then went on to earn a degree in Financial Administration. Jonathan supports Tashirat a fortune through all of his dedicated administrative work. It is thanks to him that we have been able to expand our team of paid employees, which has finally allowed our staff to focus on their own areas. He and the great team he’s made have taken over the care of our legal, financial, maintenance and much of our administrative work. He lives in Tashirat with his wife, Yael, and their family of 9 rescued dogs.
Esther (Kira)
Kira was born in 1978, and grew up in the countryside outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her artistic parents and Waldorf education filled her with a deep love of learning from young. However, at the age of 17, her passions were put on hold after she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and her health rapidly declined. She spent the next couple of years unsuccessfully attempting to find a cure, until she eventually became drawn to Yoga. While taking the Sivananda Yoga Teacher Training Course in upstate New York, she was invited to Tashirat by Shyra, now a fellow staff member, after they met in the course. They planned to make a quick visit to Tashirat to practice teaching Yoga, followed by a trip to the beach. However, within days of arrival to the Tashirat Learning Center and meeting Thyera, Kira knew she just had to stay and learn as much as she possibly could. Over time, Kira became a staff member and successfully cured the disease which she’d once thought had ruined her life but actually led her to true purpose.
Rosaura (Shenaya)
Shenaya was born in 1961, in Mexico City, Mexico. Shenaya met Tashirat’s founder, Thyera, in 1992, when a doctor recommended that she try Yoga. She became one of the Yoga teachers in Thyera’s Yoga Center in Mexico City. When Thyera left the city to live in Tepoztlan, Shenaya felt deep down that she would one day follow her. However, Shenaya stayed in the city, married, and then experienced the loss of her 3-month-old baby, who was born with Down’s Syndrome. Shenaya suffered from depression and chronic physical ailments for many years until 2009, when she finally decided to become a Tashirat student, and she learnt to heal herself. During her first few months in Tashirat, her ailments disappeared, and she found a greater purpose and fulfillment in her life. She decided to become a staff member shortly thereafter.
Matthew (Zevron)
Zev was born in 1984, in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Zev grew up as a typical American boy until his life drastically changed in his early 20’s when he was introduced to veganism and spirituality. In 2013, after 7 years of working in health food stores, homesteading and permaculture, he arrived in Tashirat as an agricultural volunteer. He also gave classes to the children, putting to use his love of science and mathematics. While spending time with the kids, he started to feel really at home. In 2015, after returning to the United States, he decided that Tashirat was his true home and where he wanted to return as a staff member.
Marisa (Shyra’el)
Shyra was born in 1979, in Los Angeles, California and raised in a suburb of Philadelphia. In 1999, she decided to attend the Sivananda Yoga Teacher Training course in upstate New York. Eating healthy, practicing Yoga and meditation and living in an Ashram community was a radically new experience for her, but one that made her feel better than anything else she had ever done. After the course, she planned a visit to Tashirat to get some practice teaching Yoga in the Learning Center. Shyra decided to stay and become a Tashirat staff member for 8 years before returning to the US for 2 years, where she lived and worked in Los Angeles, California and traveled through the US and South America for 6 months. She returned in 2009, more convinced than ever that Tashirat was her home as it is where she had felt happiest and most fulfilled.
Melissa (Natainya)
Natainya was born in 1976, and grew up in Tiverton, Rhode Island. After finishing high school, Natainya traveled extensively through Mexico while learning to make artisanal jewelry. Everywhere she went, people captured her heart with their warmth, love and Mexican hospitality. After 2 years of traveling, Natainya decided to settle down in Tepoztlán, where she found Tashirat. From then on, her life took on a different direction. Tashirats’ teachings rang true to her and inspired her to transform her lifestyle. She attended Yoga classes and meditations and soon became one of Tashirat’s regular students. A few years after the birth of her biological son, she decided to join the Tashirat team.
Anathea
Natainya was born in 1976, and grew up in Tiverton, Rhode Island. After finishing high school, Natainya traveled extensively through Mexico while learning to make artisanal jewelry. Everywhere she went, people captured her heart with their warmth, love and Mexican hospitality. After 2 years of traveling, Natainya decided to settle down in Tepoztlán, where she found Tashirat. From then on, her life took on a different direction. Tashirats’ teachings rang true to her and inspired her to transform her lifestyle. She attended Yoga classes and meditations and soon became one of Tashirat’s regular students. A few years after the birth of her biological son, she decided to join the Tashirat team.