The Resilience Project: Strengthening Communities

Help Us Expand Enhanced Resilience Training™ to Kenya in 2024

This October & November 2024, our team will be working with widows who survived the Genocide in the Rusizi District of Rwanda and the staff and clients of the Tembea na Rehema Foundation in Kenya (whose mission is to improve birth outcomes through prenatal and postpartum care and education). We’ll be running three weeks of workshops, training over 60 participants and 10 new local facilitators who can offer ERT workshops year-round.

Our mind-body training program works directly with the nervous system: providing the self-defense skills, social connection and critical education that these women need

to release stored traumas and begin to heal. Our approach focuses on building physical and mental resilience, and empowering participants with the tools that they need to overcome PTSD, stress, and debilitating effects of trauma—so that they can regain a sense of self and start experiencing joy from life again.

Since 2017, Enhanced Resilience Training™ (ERT) has been empowering survivors of genocide—women and children—in Rwanda and Uganda to overcome trauma and rebuild their lives. We’ve provided our transformative training to 60-80 participants annually, with our post-COVID project reaching an incredible 420 individuals in a single year. This year we will be expanding this life-changing project into Kenya, with a focus on creating generational resilience through pre-natal nervous system regulation.

*Please be advised that the following video contains sensitive subject matter.

What is Enhanced Resilience Training™ (ERT)?

ERT is a ground-break approach that addresses the epidemic affect that trauma has on our global communities. It is scalable, affordable, and highly effective—offering a non-verbal alternative to traditional therapeutic approaches. It works with all ages and genders, and provides healing from past traumas as well as resilience against future traumatic experiences. (Plus, it’s actually fun.)

ERT places the power of healing into the hands of the individual. Our program blends martial arts, connection, play and mindfulness with education on how trauma is stored in the nervous system. Unlike traditional therapy, ERT doesn’t require participants to relive or discuss their traumatic experiences.

Our work is peer-reviewed and directly endorsed by Dr. Stephen Porges, the founder of Polyvagal Theory . (Among professionals, especially those in trauma therapy, clinical psychology, and neurobiology, Polyvagal Theory is well-known and respected. It provides a framework for understanding the physiological basis of stress responses and social engagement, which informs therapeutic practices.)

Why We Need Your Support

Every donation counts. Your contribution will directly fund attendance and local training costs for these workshops in Rwanda and Kenya through the Martial Arts for Justice Foundation (Registered Charity No. 795283092RR0001).

Funds will be used for:

With your help, we can continue to expand the reach of ERT, bringing healing and hope to some of the most vulnerable communities in East Africa. By contributing to our campaign, you are not only helping individuals overcome trauma—but you are weaving resilience into the very fabric of the communities they live in.

Join us in making a global impact.