Project Peaceful Warriors is a non-profit organization located in New Orleans, LA. Our mission is to provide trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness programming to schools — providing students and educators with tools to reduce stress and anxiety, combat burnout, and lead happier and healthier lives. To accomplish this goal, we partner with schools, community centers, local yoga studios, and other organizations.

In New Orleans (NOLA), our students experience trauma at a shockingly disproportionate rate compared the rest of the country. According to the Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies (IWES) “In That Number” Campaign (2015) which surveyed New Orleans youth ages 11-15, 54 percent of youth in New Orleans have lost someone close to them, to murder; 40 percent have seen someone shot, stabbed, or beaten; and 29 percent worry about not being loved. The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder rate among NOLA youth is four times the rate of the national average (IWES, 2015). As their educators, we cannot change the circumstances or violent communities that they live in, but we can give them tools so they can change how they handle them. Our job is to give them the tools to grow as impactful members of the community so we can all find empowerment through peace.

To create safe and healthy learning environments in schools, we believe in creating a culture shift using the tools of yoga, mindfulness, and self-care for students and for educators. We believe that such an approach encompasses, supports, and equips the whole school with valuable tools and experiences that they can use to address trauma, which reduces and prevents negative impact on teachers and students. In addition to helping heal youth trauma through small group classes, we aim to empower teachers to bring yoga and mindfulness into their classrooms in order to decrease classroom distractions, bullying, reduce student anxiety, and burnout.