Emotional Intelligence for Communities
At SIYLI, our mission has always been to make mindfulness and emotional intelligence practical and accessible, and today, our focus is on supporting those in the public service sector. As many of you know our flagship program, Search Inside Yourself (SIY), was born at Google, and since our inception, we have worked with many organizations. Over the past six years, we have engaged in many longstanding community-based projects. Through the support of generous donors, we undertook a number of these projects enhancing the character of our work and adding even greater dimensionality to our impact. These projects exemplify our commitment to embodying our mission, ensuring that the humans that support our communities receive the emotional support they deserve.
So what is our vision and intention for Community-based projects?
As a non-profit organization, we seek to offer mindfulness-based training in partnership with individuals who are in public service, whether it be in public health, education, nonprofit initiatives or city and local governments. As we build programming for supporting these
individuals, we also seek to center the experience of communities that endure systematic racial and economic oppression. The projects we aim for have the potential for large-scale impact on individuals, as well as through a ripple effect out to those they serve.
Our intention is to create lasting systemic change by providing neuroscience-based mindfulness and emotional intelligence skills training. We accomplish this through community partnerships characterized by empathetic listening, engagement, and aligned action. Additionally, we identify and provide in-depth training to community mindfulness champions and leaders, so that highly skilled teachers are available within the community, with SIY training provided over the long term.
A little about our projects
Since 2018 we have completed a number of community projects. In response to community crises we delivered the SIY program to 300 leaders in Flint, Michigan and in Parkland, Florida, with a particular emphasis on resilience skill training. We also completed a two-year project with the government of Bhutan, training 160 civil servants to be certified SIY teachers. These teachers have taught SIY to 10,000 Bhutanese civil servants and the remaining 18,000 civil servants will receive SIY over the remainder of 2022 and 2023.
In 2020 we partnered with the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), as well as the Crim Fitness Foundation in Flint, Michigan, to train 20 SIY teachers each. These individuals will be able to teach SIY to employees and citizens of their respective organizations and community, significantly scaling impact across large populations. After an incredible first year with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, we are partnering again to support a new cohort of mindfulness teachers, in partnership with their pioneering Program Innovation Leader of Mindfulness, Trauma and Racial Healing, Jenée Johnson.
We were fortunate to partner with the Circle of Brotherhood in Liberty City, Miami, offering Adaptive Resilience training in 2020. Circle of Brotherhood is a well-respected community non-profit that provides a range of services to Liberty City and other Miami neighborhoods. Notably, they provide sensitivity training to the City of Miami Police, Miami Dade Public Defenders, and other law enforcement organizations across Florida.
Similarly, we connected with the office of the Los Angeles City Attorney to teach SIY to over 200 employees of 50 various justice agencies across Los Angeles in 2020. The office of the City Attorney is a national leader in restorative justice. Their Neighborhood Justice program has demonstrated a wide range of positive individual and social outcomes for all parties involved in remediating unlawful acts.
Want to get involved? We welcome your ideas and support.
We’re always looking for compelling and highly impactful Community projects. If you have an idea for one, we’d love to hear about it. Please carefully read the guidelines and submit information to us on this form. We look forward to hearing your ideas!
Our Community projects depend on donations from generous individuals like yourself. SIYLI, and the communities we partner with, would be most grateful for your support. You can make a contribution to SIYLI at donate.siyli.org/donate