We are thrilled to announce Damithia Nieves as our Keynote Speaker for Heart Day at Whole Child, Whole Day: Heart, Mind, & Body! YDEKC’s Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Symposium is a virtual learning journey spanning three half days: July 24, July 31, and August 7.
When reflecting on our Heart theme, Damithia Nieves immediately came to mind. Damithia presented a workshop, “UN-Settled: Recognizing and Disrupting White Supremacy in the Classroom,” at last year’s SEL Symposium to rave reviews. She is an inspiring practitioner and tenacious advocate of self-care, community care, and disrupting dominant narratives that derail our personal growth and healing.
Damithia Nieves has been practicing yoga since 2002. She is a 200-hour registered yoga teacher, certified children’s yoga teacher, and trauma informed restorative practice facilitator. She is the founder of Thrive Yoga, a yoga and mindfulness youth empowerment organization, offering trauma-informed, culturally responsive movement and mindfulness practices to youth in schools K-12. Damithia is passionate about facilitating the deep healing work around race and social justice, especially as it intersects with yoga and wellness.
Damithia will kick off the Symposium on July 24th with this Heart-centered keynote:
Listening to the Wisdom of Your Heart
Damithia Nieves, Founder & Educator, Thrive Yoga
Educators in all forms love big and give big and though we may like to be, we are not infinite wells. We must take time and space to care for ourselves and each other and return to the root of our inspiration for this work again and again. And yet, self-care has been co-opted by a system more focused on extracting our labor than increasing our capacity to love. In our time together we will look at systems of care and explore ways we can disrupt the dominant narrative that asks us to live only in the mind of logic and tangible results and that tells us our healing is external ourselves and can be bought. We will move without urgency, practice deep listening and center ourselves.
Following our Heart keynote, dive into strategies by choosing a workshop offered by You Grow Girl!, Space Between, Arts Corps, or South End Stories, and then come back together to build community and explore your own stories with Partners for Youth Empowerment. Check out our Heart Day agenda with workshop descriptions.
If you have not registered for the SEL Symposium, do not hesitate. Tickets are selling fast, and we do have some discounted Member and Scholarship Rate tickets available! We hope that you can join us for this inspiring event.