Nonprofit Rise Up Healing Collective uses yoga to teach younger kids about violence prevention
The Rise Up Healing Collective is a nonprofit that provides holistic healing, mental health advocacy, and violence intervention services.
They offer a wide range of services, including meeting with elementary school kids to teach them how to prevent violence.
One by one, second and third graders embark on a new mental journey. They ditch their shoes and grab a mat for a unique after-school program.
Coaches Sidney Francois-Friis and Emmaline Jones spent the past 10 weeks teaching yoga techniques to the young kids at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Calumet City. The coaches insist this is deeper than just stretching and breathing.
"To allow them to heal and to understand that they can control their emotions," Francois-Friis said.
Rise Up Healing Collective started just over three years ago. This year, it's one of 80 organizations across the Chicago area that works with Strides for Peace to combat gun violence. The coaches say what's happening in the after-school program is also a crime prevention.
"This is exactly what we do. We do crime and harm prevention in our community, social and emotional learning, and we have family members, as well as ourselves, who have been directly affected by gun violence," Francois-Friis said.
While he's an adult, he recalls vividly a tragic time when he was a teen.
"When I was in high school,one of my teammates got shot and killed. He was 14 years old, and he didn't deserved to be killed at 14," he said.
Both coaches view coming into the elementary school as a way to catch children when they are most impressionable.
"We can very intentionally come into the children's lives and implement tools of self-awareness, tools of how to care for your body, care for your mind and show up for your community," Jones said.
By finding their inner peace and connecting with their mind, body, and spirit. The nonprofit hopes that later in life, they will remember to reflect and think before taking action.
"We are also very intentional about instilling leadership in our space we talk about what are your gifts," Jones said.
"Sometimes you have to pause on academics and really focus in on do they have skills to identify their emotions," said Assistant Principal Jeanelle Smith.
Smith says she's seeing changes in students' behavior since participating in the Rise Up program. She adds that the school district understands social-emotional behavior.
"I think our students at this level can be easily forgotten," she said. "We come from a generation of do as you're told, and we don't realize, they, too, come to school with certain things that are out of their control, but it affects them."
Rise Up not only comes into schools, but they also take teenagers and young adults on emergence trips out of the country to broaden their view.
"What do we want the future to look like? In order for the children to live in the world we want, we have to rise up and create those things," Jones said.
One breath at a time.