About the Founder

I’m Adela Hittell — founder, human-first educator, speaker, creative producer, storyteller, wife, mother, and creator.

I founded Project Human Inc. from a deeply personal belief: that every human being is worth the conversation, the effort, the support, and the chance to be seen beyond what they have survived.

My work is rooted in human experience — the lived, layered, complicated, painful, resilient, and beautiful parts of being human that shape how we heal, communicate, lead, create, and connect.

Who I Am

Professionally, I am a founder and operator, podcast host, creative director, producer, community organizer, and systems builder.

Personally, I am someone who understands what it means to carry a story that is not simple, to rebuild identity after survival, and to search for language around pain, memory, mental health, faith, purpose, and healing.

For the last decade, much of my growth happened quietly — through motherhood, family, discipline, faith, resilience, and learning how to keep showing up even when life did not give me a clear map.

That season was not a gap. It was training.

It taught me systems, patience, responsibility, emotional endurance, and the importance of building something that can hold people with care and intention.

Why I Built Project Human Inc.

Project Human Inc. was created to help close the gaps I saw and experienced in mental and emotional health — the gaps between awareness and action, resources and access, pain and language, people and community.

I wanted to build something that made mental and emotional health feel more human, more approachable, and more connected to everyday life.

Out of that vision came PHInc.: a human-first nonprofit using conversation, education, creative expression, storytelling, advocacy, and community connection to help people feel seen, heard, informed, and less alone.

My Expertise in Human Connection and Conversation

My expertise in human connection and conversation is shaped by both lived experience and years of community-building work.

Through Project Human Inc., The Artist Within Podcast, Monthly Community Conversations, documentary storytelling, creative projects, and live events, I have studied and practiced how people open up, where they shut down, what makes them feel safe, and how honest conversation can become a bridge to self-awareness, support, and healing.

I understand conversation as more than communication. I see it as a tool for advocacy, education, prevention, relationship-building, leadership, and community health.

My work helps people and organizations better understand the human experience behind mental and emotional well-being — not from a clinical position, but from a human-first, educational, creative, and community-centered approach.

Why This Work Is Personal

I live with the impact of trauma, memory, survival, and resilience. I also live with gratitude — to God, to my family, and to the people whose choices helped keep me alive.

My life began in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and my early childhood was shaped by war, displacement, survival, and loss. Those experiences taught me that human beings can carry pain no one sees, and that one person’s choice to care can change the direction of another person’s life.

That truth is part of why I do this work.

I believe every person is worth at least a conversation — but I also believe conversation must lead somewhere. It must lead to language, support, resources, skills, dignity, self-awareness, and next steps.

What I Build Now

Through Project Human Inc., I build spaces, places, tools, media, and experiences for human connection and conversation.

That includes:

Define the Narrative, a documentary project centered on human experience, mental health, and reclaiming personal story.
The Artist Within Podcast, a platform for conversations around resilience, creativity, purpose, identity, and healing.
Monthly Community Conversations and Quarterly Mental Health Days, which create peer-to-peer spaces for dialogue, education, and support.
Creative projects, fashion, film, photography, writing, and art-based initiatives that turn expression into awareness and connection.
Community events and partnerships that bring people, organizations, advocates, artists, and resources together.

Building Here

For years, I searched for home across the ocean. Over time, I came to understand that building here — in the community where my feet are planted — is also part of the purpose.

So I am building here.

I am building systems that work, stories that heal without spectacle, and spaces that move people from empathy to action.

If my story carries anything forward, I hope it carries this:

Every life is worth the work.
Every human is worth the effort.
And healing, connection, and change begin with the human in front of us.

Adela Hittell
Founder & CEO, Project Human Inc.
Human-first educator, Speaker, Creative Producer, and Community Builder

Adela Hittell