Battered Women’s Support Service is so pleased to announce a new direction in healing for women survivors of violence
Through the support of our generous donors BWSS has envisioned Transformation
Transformation
A Body and Mind Support Program for Women
Since 1979, Battered Women’s Support Services has provided specialized support group for girls and women who experience gender violence. At any given time we provide ten unique specialized support groups and four drop-in groups held at various locations across Metro Vancouver. Our Support Group Program is well established, recognized and respected in the community. Over 3,000 girls, adult women and senior women attend our groups every year.
Those who attend our support groups report the positive impact the groups make in their healing process. They are able to break isolation and obtain tools to overcome the impacts of childhood trauma, as well as, to overcome the impacts of a spectrum of gendered violence including domestic and sexual abuse. Many women who access our services experience complex and intersecting forms of inequality in addition to the violence from a partner or acquaintance. An all too common factor in their lives is their level of isolation, precarious housing situations, economic abuse and poverty. These factors make it impossible for many women to access mainstream yoga.
Transformation – A Body and Mind Support Program for Women. Transformation consists of eco-based yoga support groups.
We have personally seen the transformative power that yoga can have on the lives of women. Yoga offers a unique blending of mind and body healing. With regular practice women are able to recognize body sensory experiences associated with trauma and shift mind-body sensations from those of fear and powerlessness to comfort and empowerment. We believe that such a great tool for healing should be accessible to everyone. Through a gift from a generous donor, BWSS is able to bring free, trauma-sensitive yoga and meditation classes to women accessing our programs. It is our belief that women will find healing, health, and knowledge for self-practice and connection to the larger yoga community. Yoga support group will be offered at our Vancouver location at strategic times of the day with a trained yoga instructor and counsellor.
Our urban and technology based world continues to create disconnection with the land and Mother Earth and contributes to the dysfunction of domestic and sexual violence against women and girls. BWSS Eco-Support Group is all about the empowerment of girls and women to strengthen personal, social and environmental well being at every level for themselves, their families and their community. We will now provide outdoor support groups for girls and women to heal from childhood trauma and gender violence through reconnecting with nature and their bodies. Girls and women will meet at our main office and will be transported outdoors once a week. Through structured sessions, that will include: hiking, gardening, body movement, meditation, guided walks, journaling, kayaking, learning about local medicinal plants, basket making, among other activities, girls and women will enter into a healing process.
Transformation will begin accepting referrals May 15, 2016. For more information please email endingviolence@bwss.org
