Jacquie Harnett - Onsite Facilitator
Jacquie is one of our onsite support staff and holistic facilitators at Lumeah. She brings a rare blend of warmth, life experience, and a deep love of language and creating spaces where guests can reconnect with their own voice.
Jacquie says - Hi, I’m Jacquie Harnett. I was born and raised in St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, and now live in Spain with my Irish husband, Mervyn.
I’ve always been drawn to stories, not just the ones we read, but the ones we live. I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Psychology, a Diploma in Creative Writing from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a CELTA Cambridge English teaching qualification. I’m a lifelong student at heart, and my curiosity has taken me down some wonderfully unexpected paths, from banking, to owning a business, to years of work in childcare and early years education, and even a few quirky qualifications along the way just as training as a barista and roadworks traffic control!!
Working with children shaped me in ways I did not anticipate. It taught me that people learn who they are through the way they are met. Kindness, patience, respect, and steadiness are not concepts children memorise, they are experiences they absorb. Over time, I realised that what we offer others so often finds its way back to us, and I try to live with that same sense of reciprocity in all my relationships.
Reading, education and writing have been the threads that run through everything. I’ve developed and facilitated writing and journalling workshops, supported community learning through library and school volunteering, and taught English and reading to refugee and displaced children. Here in Spain, I run a book club, I take weekly Spanish lessons, and I still write almost every day, sometimes short stories, sometimes essays, sometimes poetry or private journal pages, some have been published, some still wait in the wings. Writing, for me, is creative, inspiring and therapeutic. But most of all it allows me the freedom to tell my own story in the most authentic way I know how.
In 2007, I joined a volunteer group on a six-week trip to Tshelanyemba, Zimbabwe, helping to build a nurses’ residence at a rural teaching hospital. That experience changed how I saw the world, and my place within it. It reminded me that connection is powerful, that gratitude can be taught through example, and that the glimmer of beauty can be found even in the hardest landscapes, if you learn to look for it.
These days, my favourite “glimmers” are simple: the smell of fresh coffee, the promise of a new notebook, the hush of a good book, creating and sharing, a deep laugh with friends, waves on a shoreline, and the kind of hug that makes your whole body soften. Between the mountains and the sea, under wide open skies, love brought me to Spain, and it has become my home, and I feel very grateful to be here. I can't wait to meet you and share your journey here at Lumeah.
