Nourishing the Roots of Wellness & the Heart of Resilience
Collaborative Community Self-Care Programs/Trainings – India
INFUSING RESILIENCE – HOPE PROJECT CHARITABLE TRUST
After over ten years of working with the Hope Project, we entered into a new level of sustainable partnership in 2018. TSP has trained Hope Project staff to facilitate TSP’s Self-Care programs in each major area: Health, Education and Livelihood. Program coordination and evaluation are also being overseen by a TSP-trained Hope Project facilitator. These facilitators now lead TSP Self-Care programs year-round, benefiting thousands of women, children and families in the Hope Project School, Clinic, Self Help Groups, Vocational Training & Support Classes, Outreach & the far-reaching Mobile Unit.
HOLISTIC INTERVENTIONS IN PALLIATIVE CARE – CANSUPPORT PALLIATIVE CANCER CARE
TSP has worked for over 15 years with India’s largest home-based palliative care NGO, CanSupport. Our innovative model of TAKE A MINUTE® For Palliative Care (formerly known as RTHEP©) has become an indispensable part of counselors’ tool-kits in the Home Care Teams, improving quality of life for palliative cancer patients and their families. TAKE A MINUTE® For Palliative Care and TSP self-care is also implemented in the Adult and Children’s Daycare and in the Outpatient Clinics. TSP facilitates self-care sessions for CanSupport staff, for nursing students at CanSupport’s Foundation Courses, and at nursing colleges. TSP curriculum is now used in over 40 nursing colleges in India. A research project on TAKE A MINUTE® For Palliative Care at CanSupport is currently underway.
CREATING SAFE SPACES – KALPATARU PROGRAM FOR TRAFFICKED AND WITCH-HUNTED WOMEN, KOLKATA & JHARKHAND, INDIA WITH NEW LIGHT
Urmi Basu, founder/director of New Light, Kolkata, India and Zuleikha, founder/director of TSP, collaborated in 2014 to create a restorative program for women trafficked in the sex trade. The initiative creates safe spaces to explore creativity, joy and empowerment and foster resilience. Kalpataru is the Sanskrit word for the divine, wish-fulfilling tree of Indian mythology that imparts energy for changing one’s destiny. The success of the program in Kolkata inspired its expansion to Jharkhand in 2016 to work with women traumatized by witch-hunts in this rural area of eastern India.
Over the Rainbow Self-Care Programs/Trainings – New Mexico, USA
HISTORIC IDENTITY, LITERACY & EMPOWERMENT – WHAT’S IN A STORY EARLY CHILDHOOD & ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PROGRAM
TSP has partnered to implement programs in the NM Navajo Nation since 2014, when we began facilitating What’s in a Story in schools in the Gallup and Shiprock areas.
Facilitated by Amy Becenti of the Navajo Nation, What’s in a Story program engages young learners in wisdom stories using sign language and Diné-Bizaad (Navajo) vocabulary, self-care exercises and other expressive activities for literacy, historic identity and empowerment within Navajo classrooms, libraries and childcare settings each semester.
STRENGTHENING HEARTS & MINDS PROGRAM – NAVAJO MOTHERS
In partnership with Northwest NM First Born, Strengthening Hearts & Minds is a bilingual (English/Diné-Bizaad) program in northwestern NM Navajo Nation for Navajo mothers facing depression and historical trauma, facilitated by three women specialists in the fields of education, healing and self care. The program focuses on traditional women’s ways, healing and Indigenous foods, leadership, developing new patterns of family communication, and restorative exercises for body and mind after trauma and chronic stress. Collaborators: Navajo facilitators Kelly Dinéyazhe-Hunter and Sheila Goldtooth co-leading with TSP Founder/Director Zuleikha.
SELF-CARE TRAININGS FOR ZUNI PUEBLO
TSP is partnering with Zuni Pueblo to provide trainings on self-care for stress and trauma relief with Zuni Education and Career Development Center staff, Staff Wellness trainings for Zuni Recovery Center and Community Wellness Fairs.
Self-Care for Healthcare Professionals and Those They Serve – Worldwide
REKINDLING OPTIMISM, ENTHUSIASM & EMPATHY – CARE FOR THE CAREGIVER PROGRAMS/TRAININGS – WORLDWIDE
TSP founder/director Zuleikha has led programs for nurses and healthcare professionals at numerous hospitals in India including Aravind Eye Hospital, and in the US at Seton Health System, Johns Hopkins Hospital, University of Virginia and Navajo Nation health centers. Today Zuleikha/TSP works globally on Zoom with frontline nurses, healthcare and palliative care workers, and teaches movement and resilience sessions.
THE STREAM VIDEO PROJECT
The Stream is a transformation story of death and dying, created by Zuleikha, Storydancer and Founder/Director of The Storydancer Project with original music, and English and Hindi versions spoken on video.
The Storydancer Project in partnership with CanSupport-India is making The Stream video available for palliative cancer patients, families and caregivers worldwide.
TRANSFORMING ENERGY PRACTICES
SELF-CARE VIDEO LIBRARY
TAKE A MINUTE® Self-Care Zoom sessions and videos for domestic violence and human trafficking populations, staff and advocates addressing inter-generational stress, trauma relief, self-compassion and social connections that empower. Partners: NGOs and agencies for DV survivors, offenders, women veterans with PTSD, and survivors of human trafficking.
Learn More About Our Programs
Our Partnering Organizations
CanSupport
Hope Project Charitable Trust
New Light India
Central Consolidated School District
Gallup McKinley County Schools
New Mexico Navajo Nation
Northwest NM First Born
Zuni Pueblo
About Zuleikha
Zuleikha created The Storydancer Project (TSP) in 2001 to address the lack of wellness education and resources locally and internationally and to bring rejuvenation and self-care skills to girls, women, children, families and communities. TSP was incorporated as a non-profit in 2006. Zuleikha has been developing her unique TAKE A MINUTE® self-care movement program for the past two decades, and it has become a vital component of all TSP programs.
