Yoga Beyond Bars

Community yoga and meditation classes, court support, and advocacy work - we’ve expanded beyond bars!

We build communities of belonging beyond bars.

Yoga Beyond Bars is an innovative program designed to help facilitate a more holistic reintegration and healing process for liberated individuals leaving the prison system. This program is grounded in the principles of transformative justice: relationship, respect, responsibility, repair and reintegration. Yoga Beyond Bars works to ease the transition from incarceration to life in the greater community community life by providing bridges of community support, belonging and by empowering individuals to engage in healing and personal growth through embodiment practices.

Welcome home often becomes…what now?

You’re out. It can be wonderful, and it can also be completely overwhelming. Building grounding practices and finding community is key.

We provide…

Yoga and meditation classes

Join us for our monthly community yoga class! We’d love to welcome you.
We also offer bi-weekly classes to women living in the Helen B. Ratcliffe house.
Yoga Bundles

We’d love to give you your first yoga mat. Contact us and we’ll get a bundle to you with everything you need for a regular home practice!
Court Support

We provide information pertinent to individual’s humanity and community support, advocate and speak at proceedings, organize bodies for virtual and in-person attendance, and communication with family members.

2024 Community Class Schedule

January 7

Meditation with Noy
Aditi Yoga, 4pm

February 3

Rest as Reparations with Gabby
Aditi Yoga, 4pm

March 2

Equinox/Finding Balance with Faraji
The Conservatory, 4pm

April 6

Community Pop-Up
TBD

May 4

Writing/Movement with Zoe
Yoga on Beacon, 4pm

June 1

Juneteenth Celebration with Faraji
Seward Park, 6pm

Advocacy towards liberation

Yoga Behind Bars advocacy work includes:

Grassroots and organizational coordinating to be at tables, meetings, and to build authentic relationships with state representatives, legislators, WA St supreme Court justices, Superior Court judges, lawyers, school board, teachers, administrators, and other people in positions of power to hear directly from the people with the most experience of systemic and institutional harm.

Advocacy for liberation aims to bring forth solutions from lived experts and the family, friends, and community most connected to them.

UPCOMING ADVOCACY

January 24

Capitol Steps
Olympia, Washington

Join Yoga Behind Bars as we support our friends Eugene Youngblood and Alex Mayo of Freedom Project in collaboration with Dream.org for the National Day of Empathy, the nation’s largest day of action for criminal legal system reform. Let’s work with legislators to right the legislative wrongs of the past.