Our Projects
Humanitarian Support: Fostering community & offering practices of care
We offer support for aid workers by hosting virtual embodied Self-Care Sessions and community events like our monthly Community Campfire Chats.
We offer embodied Self-Care Sessions with the intention of building a global community of care, and empowering participants with tools for embodied resilience and sustainability.
These one hour sessions include a variety of embodied practices such as mindful movement, art-therapy, dance, guided rest (yoga nidra), creative expression, etc.
Our Community Campfire Chats offer trauma-informed facilitators and aid workers a regular space to see and be seen, to hold and be held. These informal circles connect those with a shared passion for reducing the suffering in the world through the healing potential of yoga, art and community.
Past circles have included discussion around queer inclusion, sharing yoga nidra in a trauma setting, dance, experiences from volunteers working in various localities around the world, etc.
Learn more about these upcoming offerings on our events page.
Refugee scholarship fund
We are opening up our upcoming Trauma-Informed Facilitation Training with a focus on ethics and self-care to refugees with our Refugee Scholarship Fund.
We aim to empower refugee embodiment teachers with:
• A toolkit of embodied practices and resources to share within their community.
• An ethical foundation for holding space for others, especially displaced children and adults.
• Awareness around how trauma and stress may impact themselves & those in their community.
• Knowledge and resources for their own self-care and burnout prevention.
We invite you to make a financial contribution to help make this possible. You can donate now via paypal here or via a bank transfer to our Irish bank account:
Yoga Mandala Project
Permanent TSB, Dublin, Ireland
BIC; IPBSIE2D
IBAN; IE98 IPBS 9907 1726 6825 24
No amount is too small - it is together that we rise. If you are unable to make a financial contribution at this time, you can also share our project with your friends, family, or network, host a fundraising class or meal for YMP, or give your time and skills to our volunteer-driven programs.
in-person service
YMP organizes in-person volunteer programs in collaboration with our partner organizations in Greece, Jordan and other parts of the world. Our team recently offered a embodied wellbeing program for Yazidi youth in Northern Greece in collaboration with EPIC Assist Charity and Lifting Hands International which covered topics such as self-esteem, mental health, cultural awareness and more through embodiment and experiential learning.
We also recently gathered as a global community of volunteers in Ireland to bring embodied support to Ukrainian refugees as well as our trauma-informed training to empower local facilitators to support the refugees within their local communities. Our next in-person service trip is aligning for Jordan in spring 2025. Stay tuned for ways to get involved and reach out to Molly if this might interest you - yogamandalaproject@gmail.com.
We also link our trainees with various organizations on the ground to ensure more programs with those impacted by war and violence are inclusive and trauma-informed.
Virtual yoga programs
Our volunteers who have trained in trauma-informed facilitation sustain our healing-centered yoga programs with those impacted by war and violence through our partner organizations in different locations around the world. Interested in sharing yoga classes from your own home over zoom? Email us to learn more + join the waitlist: volunteer.ymp@gmail.com.
CARING FOR THE CARERS: STAFF WELLBEING PROGRAM
YMP offers a Caring for the Carers Program which has been designed to support the overall wellbeing and sustainability of the international aid community. Our experiences in the humanitarian field have exposed us to mental health challenges among staff leading to high turnover rates which this program aims to alleviate through embodied tools and practices, awareness around the impacts of stress and trauma, personal reflection and team connection.
The program offers teams an opportunity to explore both how we can each be well as individuals and how we can be well together by weaving together experiential learning, reflection and embodied practices.
Program Overview
Self-regulation and resourcing as the foundation for humanitarian well-being
The window of tolerance as a framework for caring for ourselves
Creating your own self-care plan
The neuroscience of self-care
Stress, the mind-body connection and the impacts of trauma on the nervous system
The polyvagal theory as a framework for team / community care
Team care contract
What’s Included
Interactive workbook to support wellbeing and program integration
A learning platform with a toolkit of embodied resources for staff wellbeing (breath practices, mindfulness, etc.)
Both bitesize and full length practices offered to fit into the fast pace life many aid workers experience
A four part guided relaxation series designed to support the wellbeing of humanitarians and caring professionals
Space for community questions, sharing and feedback
Team care agreement worksheet and guidance
This program can be offered live or self-paced on our learning platform in a variety of formats to meet the goals, intentions and needs of each host organization.
RESOURCE CHANNEL
The YMP Team is creating a website with pre-recorded trauma-informed resources, practices and tools to be shared with those impacted by war, violence and displacement around the world. Through our various partner organizations, refugees and displaced people will have access to the content of the channel in their own time and space.
We aim to include short grounding practices, a variety of physical movement-based modalities, such as mindful movement, dance, Tai Chi, fitness; or meditative-type practices such as Yoga Nidra, Tapping, Mindfulness, Breathwork, Meditation, etc. We also aim to offer a family channel with additional children’s activities such as story time and art-based activities.
We are seeking volunteers to help with the project implementation. Please email our volunteer coordinator to learn more @ volunteer.ymp@gmail.com.
collateral repair project yoga program: Amman
We have established an ongoing and sustainable Yoga program with urban refugees at the CRP in East Amman.
Urban refugees often fall through the cracks, in terms of advocacy and support. CRP offers a lifeline to many families, who have no source of income, no work, and very poor living conditions. With the support of CRP and their staff we have ongoing classes for men, women and children in the community center in Hashemi Shemali.
The Yoga teachers who volunteer there have all done the YMP Trauma informed Yoga Training, and are equipped and empowered to teach in that context.
