Canan Arikan is a software test engineer, women’s advocate, and certified InterPlayer Leader. She has more than 20 years of volunteer work supporting and empowering women and youth. Arriving in the United States in 2016 as an asylee, she needed a way to heal, release, and relax. InterPlay tools and forms helped her through this healing process with fun and joy, without any judgement or criticism. Through her training and the formation and operation of Sustaining International Sisters (SIS), she exformed the trauma of moving unexpectedly to a different country by moving, singing, shaking, witnessing, running, and stopping. She listened to many stories of SISters. She practiced affirmation and looking for the good. She was delighted to share all of these treasures with other women from around the world. Canan and her former English teacher Ruth Schowalter founded InterPlay SIS to bring together asylum seekers, other international women, and U.S. citizens to connect, inspire, and learn from one another through InterPlay. In 2019, SIS began Online Global SIS to offer InterPlay to women worldwide. In 2020, InterPlay SIS became a 501c3 non-profit with the Body Wisdom Office. Canan holds an MBA and completed graduate studies for a PhD(ABD) in Management and Organization.

Ruth Schowalter, visionary folk artist, certified InterPlay Leader and Life Practice Program Leader, co-founded InterPlay Sustaining International Sisters (SIS). Ruth is dedicated to bringing together women from diverse backgrounds (geographical, cultural, spiritual, racial, educational, and generational) through play. Through InterPlay SIS, she found the structure to connect women in ways that support them and allows them to share, learn, and inspire one another. Ruth has an M.S. in Applied Linguistics and ESL and taught international students English communication at the university level for 30 plus years, applying InterPlay to her instruction for more than a decade. In addition to InterPlay SIS, she leads a Deep Play group twice monthly. Ruth is a certified Art of Ensoulment coach and has been a dance chaplain for six years, leading CPR for the Soul every Monday through Cynthia Winton-Henry's Hidden Monastery, where she leads participants to blend dance, prayer, and making marks. In 2022, Ruth co-led a monthly Ensoulment Creativity Studio with Cynthia Winton-Henry and is currently co-leading with Cynthia the Art of Ensoulment Wisdom Circle. She is in the process of creating art work to accompany Cynthia's intergenerational book, The Great Dance, to be published in 2026. Ruth's colorful figurative paintings and drawings express her inner world of dreams and psychological meanderings. She lives in Decatur, Georgia, with her author husband, Anthony J. Martin and four cats, Tao, Sapelo, Ossabaw, and Durga.