Eleison provides grants and technical assistance to early-stage, client-centered programs for survivors of human trafficking and gender-based violence (GBV). Eleison gave a grant to Healing and Resilience after Trauma (HaRT) for the development of their trauma-informed yoga intervention curriculum, Move with HaRT. Eleison’s grant covered technical and financial support to revise and formalize the Move with HaRT curriculum, including the graphic design, artwork, packaging, and production of a manual accessible to facilitators. The creation of this curriculum allows HaRT to expand its reach and train other facilitators in the implementation of this intervention.
Move with HaRT is a 12-week, low-tech, and trauma-informed mental health program involving mind-body practices. In weekly sessions, the intervention incorporates yoga poses, breathwork, guided visualizations, and theme-based discussions to promote three key themes: radical self-love, compassion in action, and safety in the body. The program is informed by trauma theory, neuroscience, and feminist principles of safety and agency. As demonstrated in a mixed-methods evaluation in Uganda in 2020, participants experienced a reduction in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research has shown that participation is connected to heightened self-compassion, sense of belonging, and greater relaxation in the body. Move with HaRT offers a cost-effective and accessible strategy for promoting the psychological and social wellbeing of people who have experienced trauma, especially in low-resource contexts, as it can be implemented by non-mental health professionals.
We spoke to Sophie Namy, Founder and Co-Director of HaRT, to understand the impact of Eleison’s curriculum development grant. We asked Namy how the grant from Eleison helped HaRT as an organization, to which she emphasized:
“It was tremendously helpful to us as an organization. With the funding support for the technical review and design process, we expanded our network to include artists, designers, trauma clinicians, and other trauma-informed yoga teachers working in different communities.”
In addition to providing grant funds, Eleison participated in a technical review process with a series of experts. Ms. Namy shared that Eleison’s findings and reviews of the curriculum highlighted areas that required further thinking or sensitivity. Namy reflects that HaRT was able to learn from Eleison about proactively considering clients’ overlapping traumas and strengthen sensitivity to survivors of human trafficking specifically. Through this input, the curriculum shifted to become more trauma-informed, emotionally safe, and deliverable in diverse contexts.
Namy also shared that developing the Move with HaRT curriculum into a visual manual enables the curriculum to become accessible as a facilitator guide:
“Bringing beauty into this work is so important to counter the stigma and narrative that often surrounds survivors of trafficking and other forms of violence. The artwork helps uplift, affirm, and inspire the facilitator and also the participants.”
Namy explained that HaRT participants have engaged in the curriculum by creating their own art based on its illustrations. Finally, she shared that having the curriculum completed helps the promotion of the program to expand to new audiences and partners around the world. Upon asking for Namy’s final notes on the key elements of the newly developed HaRT curriculum, she stressed that:
“It is intentionally designed, to facilitate a process that starts with the breath and body, moves to affirming the self, and then outwardly to creating more community with others. It is a full mind-body practice, with short discussions, movement, breathwork, introspection, and sharing. Most of all, it is designed to honor the dignity inherent of each individual – including the facilitator and support staff – and aspires to create trust and safety in the group.”
Acknowledgements for the HaRT curriculum are extended to its developers, Sophie Namy, Joyce Christine Nakiwala, and Dr. Catherine Carlson, with important contributions from a team of expert reviewers: Dr. Laura Cordisco Tsai, Dr. Malabika Das, Carmina Charmaine G. Domingo, Dr. Stephanie Miedema, and creatives, Angela Yarber and Caitlin McIntosh.
