Yoga is effective for alleviating mental, physical and emotional stress. This training, offered through a collaboration between The Practices and The OMPowerment Project, is for anyone who wants to work with refugees or other marginalized groups, teachers who want to create a more inclusive classroom, organizations that offer outreach programming, and yoga teachers who wish to certify to run their own OMPowerment, trauma informed trainings. Working with refugee, at-risk, and other marginalized groups requires specific skills and refined awareness to facilitate a space of empowerment and healing.

Individuals from all backgrounds welcome, including yoga teachers and practitioners from any school, as well as therapists, social workers, and community managers working with or for the NGO community. While we have designed this program to empower refugees to teach themselves and members of their communities the healing practices of trauma informed yoga, many of the skills learned through this training are transferable and can be used in working with other groups.

Curriculum includes:

-      Introduction to key aspects of The OMPowerment Project’s program, including what we do and why

-      Training structure and key teachings. How we teach and why we teach that way.

-      Basic physiology of stress and trauma: definitions; the stress response and the nervous system

-      The capacity of yoga to facilitate healing from trauma, stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms

-      The signs and implications of distress, anxiety, and trauma and how to recognize it in ourselves and our students

- Tools for resourcing and discharge

-      Exploration of privilege, bias, and the isms (racism, sexism, ableism, etc.), the ways they are rooted in identity and cultural conditioning, and how this conditioning informs our experience and our work

-      Recognizing and working with your own triggers/shadow, and why this work is necessary before working with at risk/marginalized communities

-      Best practices for working with refugee, marginalized and at-risk populations 

-      How to craft a trauma informed practice; creating safe and supportive space; holding a healing environment; using language that is inclusive and welcoming; asana and breath work choice

-      How to take care of yourself so that you can show up for your students

You will also have the opportunity to join a community of like minded seekers and facilitators to ask questions, discuss the work, and share experiences.

We will continue to add to and revise this training over time, responding to your feedback and offering additional content as it becomes available. Join us now to become a part of this community that will explore and grow together.