One of our core pillars is “Living Beyond Ourselves” — equipping our Instructors for ministry so that they can take the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth, and bring healing and restoration through Christ and the modality of yoga.
This year, for Giving Tuesday, we are partnering with Salt & Light Coalition, a trauma-informed workforce development program empowering survivors to thrive.
Story
Dr. Izabel Olson, founder and CEO of Salt & Light Coalition, turned to spirituality, health, and wellness at an early age. After experiencing many hardships and obstacles throughout her upbringing, those 3 things helped her heal from past traumas in order to build a better life and career for herself. Having grown up with a father who was a political prisoner in Brazil, Dr. Olson felt compelled to connect with the Cook County Jail and began teaching yoga to female inmates. To her surprise, she found that 70% of the women she encountered had been trafficked.
Moved by her experience with women in the Cook County jail, Dr. Olson started volunteering at shelters for trafficked women. While volunteering, she witnessed the mental, emotional, and socioeconomic challenges faced by survivors. She identified a gap in the existing services for trafficking survivors when she noticed an inadequate level of attention was being paid to readying these women to enter the workforce.
Using her research experience and knowledge of Learning Sciences gleaned from a six-year doctoral program at Northwestern University, Dr. Olson carefully conducted months of literature-based and ethnographic research to create an innovative, holistic, and trauma-informed curriculum. This curriculum is the vehicle through which we provide survivors with the mind-body restoration and employment skills that truly set them up for success, keep them out of jail, and allow them to pave a new path for themselves and their families.
Dr. Olson founded the Salt & Light Coalition in July of 2017. They started their first cohort of 5 ‘Thrivers’ – trafficking survivors who take part in our program – and are now taking on cohorts of 20 women. They have graduated 43 Thrivers so far and are currently in the process of taking our 11th cohort through their program.
What Thrivers in the program are saying
“Yoga is a time to place my worries before my creator.”
– T.S. Cohort 8
“Since starting yoga at Salt and Light, I have found that I have the motivation to be much more active in my outside life”
– A.R. Cohort 10
“Meditations and Yoga help me to feel more grounded”
– A.R. Cohort 10
WE INVITE YOU TO LOCK ARMS & MAKE A DIFFERENCE THIS GIVING TUESDAY
Your contribution provides crucial resources like financial assistance and personalized coaching, equipping survivors with the skills they need to thrive.
You can learn more about Salt & Light Coalition here!
