Clifford Symposium 2016: Interactive Workshop & Talk with the Holistic Life Foundation

Nurturing Well-Being While Working with Underserved Communities: A Workshop and Talk with the Holistic Life Foundation

The Holistic Life Foundation (HLF) has more than a decade of experience teaching yoga and mindfulness to youth classified as “high-risk” or “hard-to-reach” in urban environments. But they also have years of experience teaching youth in private schools, as well as rural and international settings. Over time, HLF has developed a unique blend of yoga, mindfulness, Tai Chi, and other self-healing arts.

In this two-part program, the founders of the Holistic Life Foundation—Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez—will first discuss their organization, based in Baltimore, and how they founded a mindfulness-based program for inner city students. They will then explore ways to teach yoga and mindfulness to today’s youth, inviting us to gain a deeper understanding of the needs of today’s youth in diverse environments and learn new yoga and mindfulness skills to help fulfill those needs.

Through a combination of practice and discussion, we will learn centering exercises, mindfulness practices, and meditations. We will also explore youth engagement principles, teaching philosophies, and strategies for working with “problem” students, while exploring methods to make the whole approach practical and, most of all, fun.