Palestine - 2019
In collaboration with
Shadan Nassar and Farashe Yoga Studio
In collaboration with Shadan Nassar and with the generous support of GiZ, we returned to Palestine in September 2019 to work with fifteen women from refugee communities across the West Bank and Jerusalem.
“I used to be angry and the anger spread through my house and to my children. Now, after yoga, I feel like a butterfly. I have emerged more flexible and calm. I know how to breathe and focus. And this calm is also now spreading through my house and to my children.”
In collaboration with The Safe Space Myanmar and Whispering Seed we facilitated training of ten female leaders representing a number of community organisations, orphanages, and monastic schools from all over Myanmar.
The training was held in Kalaw and empowered a group of female youth that represented a number of community organizations, orphanages, and monastic schools from all over Myanmar. The primary focus was on community service, youth empowerment, and working with ethnic and disadvantaged youth from conflict areas.
Several of the girls training in Kalaw have already begun offering the practices in their home communities.
The training took place with the generous support of Whispering Seed.
Palestine — 2017
In collaboration with
Shadan Nassar
In November 2017, for our second project, we were invited by Farashe Yoga Studio in Ramallah, Palestine to offer trauma informed facilitation skills training to studio staff, and trauma informed yoga and self regulation for stress and anxiety training for five, local leaders.
We worked with the powerful changemaker Shadan Nassar to organize a training at Farashe. Shadan is working to provide the Arab world with tools that empower individuals to live and lead healthier and happier lives. She has been hard at work creating an online platform that provides yoga videos and Ayurvedic/nutritional guidance in Arabic.
Each day, the trainees showed up - often despite long waits and tense situations at the checkpoints - and dedicated their time and energy to learning all they could about themselves and this practice.
To close the training, five trainees worked together to teach a class for us, their friends, and the Farashe community. Each trainee brought their own unique dynamic to their sequencing and transmission. We can't wait to hear more about how they are using these tools in their own work, including work to empower Palestinian civil society, lead movement practices for LGBT youth, and advocate for sexual choice and freedom from child marriage.