THE STORYDANCER PROJECT INC
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : i**o@t*******************t.o*g
Mission Statement
The Storydancer Project inspires positive change in the face of adversity through transformative movement, performance, and self-care practices that restore vitality and cultivate joy.
About This Cause
Whether we are with children in New Mexico, Muslim women struggling to eke out a living in Delhi, people dealing with the devastations of cancer, or Navajo mothers feeling isolated with the burdens of historical trauma, TSP is working from the understanding that holistic self-care in community is a powerful agent of change. After over ten years of working with the Hope Project, we entered into a new level of sustainable partnership in 2018. TSP has trained Hope Project staff to facilitate TSP’s Self-Care programs in each major area: Health, Education and Livelihood. Program coordination and evaluation are also being overseen by a TSP-trained Hope Project facilitator. These facilitators now lead TSP Self-Care programs year-round, benefiting thousands of women, children and families in the Hope Project School, Clinic, Self Help Groups, Vocational Training & Support Classes, Outreach & the far-reaching Mobile Unit. TSP has worked for over 15 years with India’s largest home-based palliative care NGO, CanSupport. Our innovative model of Relaxation Therapeutic Health Exercises for Palliative Cancer Care Patients & Families (RTHEP©) has become an indispensable part of counselors’ tool-kits in the Home Care Teams, improving quality of life for palliative cancer patients and their families. RTHEP© and TSP self-care is also implemented in the Adult and Children’s Daycare and in the Outpatient Clinics. TSP facilitates self-care sessions for CanSupport staff, for nursing students at CanSupport’s Foundation Courses, and at nursing colleges. TSP curriculum is now used in over 40 nursing colleges in India. A research project on RTHEP© at CanSupport is currently underway. TSP has partnered to implement programs in the NM Navajo Nation since 2014, when we began facilitating What’s in a Story in schools in the Gallup and Shiprock areas. Facilitated by Amy Becenti of the Navajo Nation, with Raylene Yazzie of the Navajo Nation, What’s in a Story program engages young learners in wisdom stories using sign language and Diné-Bizaad (Navajo) vocabulary, self-care exercises and other expressive activities for literacy, historic identity and empowerment within Navajo classrooms, libraries and childcare settings each semester. In partnership with Northwest NM First Born, Strengthening Hearts & Minds is a bilingual (English/Diné-Bizaad) program in northwestern NM Navajo Nation for Navajo mothers facing depression and historical trauma, facilitated by three women specialists in the fields of education, healing and self care. The program focuses on traditional women’s ways, healing and Indigenous foods, leadership, developing new patterns of family communication, and restorative exercises for body and mind after trauma and chronic stress. Collaborators: Navajo facilitators Kelly Dinéyazhe-Hunter and Sheila Goldtooth co-leading with TSP Founder/Director Zuleikha. Urmi Basu, founder/director of New Light, Kolkata, India and Zuleikha, founder/director of TSP, collaborated in 2014 to create a restorative program for women trafficked in the sex trade. The initiative creates safe spaces to explore creativity, joy and empowerment and foster resilience. Kalpataru is the Sanskrit word for the divine, wish-fulfilling tree of Indian mythology that imparts energy for changing one’s destiny. The success of the program in Kolkata inspired its expansion to Jharkhand in 2016 to work with women traumatized by witch-hunts in this rural area of eastern India. In partnership with Navajo Nation domestic violence centers, New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Zuni Pueblo, and Esperanza Shelter in Santa Fe, TSP programs offer trauma-informed, body-based self-care exercises and movement arts to address stress and trauma for survivors, offenders and counselors/advocates. TSP founder/director Zuleikha has led programs for nurses and healthcare professionals at numerous hospitals in India including Aravind Eye Hospital, and in the US at Seton Health System, Johns Hopkins Hospital, University of Virginia and Navajo Nation health centers. Today Zuleikha/TSP works globally on Zoom with frontline nurses, healthcare and palliative care workers, and teaches movement and resilience sessions. RECENT VIRTUAL SESSIONS & ONLINE OFFERINGS January, 2021 – Video for NM Navajo Nation Mothers April, 2021 – Nourishment for Nurses: Restoring Wholeness in Turbulent Times, A Virtual Retreat, led by Zuleikha & nurse and professor of bioethics, Cynda Rushton. Spring, 2021 – Self-Care Sessions for Esperanza Battered Family Services staff May, July, September, 2021 – CanSupport Team Self-Care Sessions September, 2021 – Self-Care Video for India’s Nurses Fall, 2021 – Self-Care with Johns Hopkins nurses in collaboration with Cynda Rushton.