Mindfulness with women refugees: Ariana Faris, Lana Jackson and Julia Powell
The colleagues presented the highlights and learning from the experiences of running mindfulness courses with women refugees.
We explored some big questions that the teachers face.
It was very interesting to hear how networking with organisations involved in welcoming and supporting refugees really made a difference in reaching participants and serving them well.

Here is a link to the recording of the gathering.

If you are working with refugees and intending to step up and offer training, pleases contact Ariana Faris, Lana Jackson, Julia Powell. You can contact them trhough the Sussex Mindfulness Centre

This also holds for Noor Bakkal M.D. who is  working with Arabic speaking refugees in the Netherlands. Contact Exchange@eamba.net to be connected to her.

Let’s ensure that great initiatives and initiators are connected, eamba is here to foster community.

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Details:
Mindfulness Across Borders is a ten-week trauma-informed and culturally sensitive mindfulness programme for women refugees.
Ariana Faris and Sheila Webb created the programme to provide women with a safe and empowering space to connect with themselves and each other.
The women learn to uaw tools for wellbeing and stress management, and cultivate greater acceptance, self-compassion, and resilience under extremely challenging circumstances.

Ariana and Sheila ran the 10-week course with women refugees in London and Cardiff in 2016.
On behalf of the Sussex Mindfulness Centre, Lana Jackson and Julia Powell led the programme for women refugees and asylum seekers in Brighton in 2023 and are about to run it again.

With war, persecution and environmental disasters forcing people from their homes, tens of thousands of people flee to the UK every year.
Asylum seekers are more likely to experience poor mental health than the local population, including higher rates of depression, PTSD and other anxiety disorders.
Their vulnerability is linked to war or persecution in their home countries, and hostility in their new host communities.
The hostilities don’t end when people arrive here.
People seeking asylum get little financial support, inadequate temporary housing and are not allowed to work.

Given these challenges how can help mindfulness help?
Ariana and Sheila sought to respond to this question when they ran the Mindfulness Across Borders programme.
In this eamba Exchange gathering, they will present the initial concept of the programme and consider some of the learning
from running it.

In the discussion we will explore the questions such as: “Can mindfulness be more than a sticking plaster for refugees?
As facilitators, with no experience of asylum, how do we bring ourselves to the sessions so that we are ‘equal’ and not ‘other’?
How can we support people who have experienced such recent life-changing trauma?
How can mindfulness counter the ever more hostile environment, in which refugees seek sanctuary?”

We gratefully welcomed Ariana Faris, Lana Jackson and Julia Powell.

Ariana is a Systemic Psychotherapist, trainer, mindfulness teacher and supervisor. One of the original creators of the Mindfulness Across Borders curriculum, Ariana ran the programme in Cardiff and London, and supervised Lana and Julia to teach the programme in Brighton.

Lana is a senior clinical psychologist, yoga therapist, and mindfulness teacher with Sussex Mindfulness Centre. She has a special interest in nature-connection and trauma-informed therapy and practice with children, young people and adults.

Julia trained to be a mindfulness teacher in 2017, after a career in international development, social justice and human rights. Julia runs mindfulness courses and coaching for the public, and for refugees and asylum seekers.