The Women Project
- The Women Project, a Trauma Informed Charity supports trauma impacted women to overcome adversity and bridge the gap between surviving and thriving.
- We are a Women Center and Fitness Studio committed to providing access to inclusive safe spaces for Trauma Informed Fitness Programs, Somatic Movement and Psycho-education as an adjunctive approach to support healing and growth.
- We strive to partner with trauma treatment centers, and organisations serving trauma impacted clientele.
- We strive to partner with Israel’s leading sports education institutes to facillitate training and certification in trauma informed practices with the goal of creating a holistic connection between mental health and the fitness industry.
How we work
WE STRENGTHEN
WE SUPPORT
WE EMPOWER
WE EDUCATE
Our core principles
Safety
We prioritize the participants physical and emotional safety.
Trust and Transparency
The basis for our approach to service delivery which facilitates engagement and trust with our charity.
Collaboration
We work closely with other organisations and clinicians and actively seek input from the women we support.
Empowerment, Voice and Choice
We strive to help women learn about their bodies, help them navigate their needs and encourage them to develop skills of self-advocacy and assertiveness.
Hi, I’m Alex
It is my passionate belief that everyone deserves to learn to move their bodies as an act of self-care.
As Israel’s first facilitator of Trauma Informed Strength Training I founded the Women Project as I believe that through this work, we can help these women reclaim movement as a pathway to healing trauma, regulate their nervous system and reconnect with their bodies. Creating a Trauma Informed Training Program is something I envisioned at the beginning of my own journey into health and fitness. Frustrated that there weren’t more people in the fitness space who were equipped to help clients living with trauma I decided to become the Trauma Informed personal trainer I wish had been available to me.
I came to understand through my studies and experience that the practice of welcoming the unique sensations in our bodies as a healing tool cannot and must not be ignored.
In my work as a health-coach and personal trainer I have witnessed my clients struggle with the ways their body has carried the legacy of past experiences and traumas. I have witnesses them struggle to abide by standardized models of training due to their ever changing mental, emotional and physical capacities. I realized there was a significant number of people who were attempting to fit into a structure that did not truly see or understand them.
Knowing this, I began to use my health-coaching and somatic experiencing skills, trauma -informed practices and experience of working with women to create a program that would become the basis for The Women Project. A fitness program that engages trauma impacted women with complex needs, in a way that considers the whole person, their emotional health, harmful belief systems, sensory challenges, body awareness and history of trauma rather than their fitness background alone. My approach is based on compassion, curiosity and continuous learning.
At The Women Project we are here to support , nurture and celebrate these women as we work together to create a path to strength and healing.
I came to understand through my studies and experience that the practice of welcoming the unique sensations in our bodies as a healing tool cannot and must not be ignored.
In my work as a health-coach and personal trainer I have witnessed my clients struggle with the ways their body has carried the legacy of past experiences and traumas. I have witnesses them struggle to abide by standardized models of training due to their ever changing mental, emotional and physical capacities. I realized there was a significant number of people who were attempting to fit into a structure that did not truly see or understand them.
Knowing this, I began to use my health-coaching and somatic experiencing skills, trauma -informed practices and experience of working with women to create a program that would become the basis for The Women Project. A fitness program that engages trauma impacted women with complex needs, in a way that considers the whole person, their emotional health, harmful belief systems, sensory challenges, body awareness and history of trauma rather than their fitness background alone. My approach is based on compassion, curiosity and continuous learning.
At The Women Project we are here to support , nurture and celebrate these women as we work together to create a path to strength and healing.
Hi, I’m Alex
It is my passionate belief that everyone deserves to learn to move their bodies as an act of self-care.
As Israel’s first facilitator of Trauma Informed Strength Training I founded the Women Project as I believe that through this work, we can help these women reclaim movement as a pathway to healing trauma, regulate their nervous system and reconnect with their bodies. Creating a Trauma Informed Training Program is something I envisioned at the beginning of my own journey into health and fitness. Frustrated that there weren’t more people in the fitness space who were equipped to help clients living with trauma I decided to become the Trauma Informed personal trainer I wish had been available to me.
I came to understand through my studies and experience that the practice of welcoming the unique sensations in our bodies as a healing tool cannot and must not be ignored.
In my work as a health-coach and personal trainer I have witnessed my clients struggle with the ways their body has carried the legacy of past experiences and traumas. I have witnesses them struggle to abide by standardized models of training due to their ever changing mental, emotional and physical capacities. I realized there was a significant number of people who were attempting to fit into a structure that did not truly see or understand them.
Knowing this, I began to use my health-coaching and somatic experiencing skills, trauma -informed practices and experience of working with women to create a program that would become the basis for The Women Project. A fitness program that engages trauma impacted women with complex needs, in a way that considers the whole person, their emotional health, harmful belief systems, sensory challenges, body awareness and history of trauma rather than their fitness background alone. My approach is based on compassion, curiosity and continuous learning.
At The Women Project we are here to support , nurture and celebrate these women as we work together to create a path to strength and healing.
Before there are words,
there is the communication of the body.
Our Values
- We believe that these women have a right to improved and extended access to the services and support they want, when they choose.
- We believe that sport and movement is a powerful tool for restoring healthy nervous system function, building not only physical strength but resilience and improving quality of life.
- We believe in a holistic approach that views each woman as a whole person.
- We believe in empowering women by building on their capabilities and strengths and encouraging their self-belief in their own ability to make positive change.
Our Mission
- Our Mission is provide access to Trauma Informed inclusive, safe spaces for exercise and movement for all women as an adjunctive approach to dealing with trauma.
- Our Mission is to support women by providing them with resources, opportunities and experiences to use movement as a tool to build confidence, resillience and strength to support them on their healing journey.
- Our Mission is to partner with organizations, charities and community centers to ensure that the provision of Trauma Informed exercise is included in the holistic services that women with multiple and complex needs have access to.
- Our Mission is to remove barriers to exercise such as lack of safety, finances and confidence to allow these women to move their bodies as an act of self-care.
Trauma comes back as a reaction,
not a memory.
What are the challenges
we address and why
our work is so
important
Humankind is struggling, we are in the midst of an epidemic of deteriorating mental health and the effect of trauma is widespread and places a heavy burden on individuals, families and communities creating formidable challenges for public institutions and service systems.
Today clinicians understand much more about the broader implications of abuse, addiction, sexism, oppression, poverty, war and terror attacks. They know that both complex and acute trauma, chronic stress, anxiety and depression can lead to a myriad of symptoms and conditions that affect an individuals’ well-being, and ability to thrive. In order to maximise the impact of the hard work being done by the organisations active in this field we need a multi-layered, multi-agency approach in a Trauma Sensitive organisational and community context.
At The Women Project we aim to provide resources and programs that engage women with complex needs in a way that considers the whole person, and how movement or lack of movement can be impacted by past or present experiences rather than their fitness background alone. At The Women Project Center we strive to provide a space where feeling seen, heard, known and accepted as they are, becomes part of their wellness and healing experience.
Trauma is not an event,
trauma is the response
Trauma Informed Practice and how it is implemented in the fitness world
Trauma Informed Care is an approach in the human service field that assumes that an individual is more likely than not to have a history of trauma, recognizes the presence of trauma symptoms and pursues an approach to prevent re-traumatisation. In the world of fitness we are often trained in a way that focuses heavily on physical capacity and training experience.
Trauma Sensitive training takes into account mental and emotional health, harmful belief systems, sensory challenges, body awareness and a history of trauma. It’s about learning that while not being in your body was a coping strategy, returning to it is now actually going to help you heal. A Trauma Informed training program’s goal is to process, and progress through, traumatic events and their after effects augmenting other approaches.
The goal is to help women rebuild their body awareness, to teach them that they have choices for their bodies, to allow them to make the right choice for them and to encourage them to feel safe in their own bodies.
We would be failing these individuals if we did not see how movement or lack of movement can be impacted by past or present experiences.
The body is wise. It never lies.
How we help
Movement through a Trauma Informed Lens
The Women Project aims to use Trauma Informed Strength Training, Trauma Informed Yoga and Embodied Movement classes informed by Somatic Experiencing and evidence-based Trauma Research to enable participants in our programs to foster resilience, to encourage an increased sense of urgency and empowerment, to cultivate a healthy nervous system and to facilitate positive connections to self and others.
The Women Project Strength Training Program is based on 12 core principles and rooted in safety, choice and autonomy. The program, the first of its’ kind in Israel was developed in collaboration with experts in the field both in Israel and abroad.
*Trauma Informed Strength Training is officially recognised as an evidence-based practice for the adjunctive treatment of trauma.
Our Partners
The body informs the mind.
Statistics in Israel
the body is the shore on the ocean of being.