Raising Up Women
| Raising Up Rwanda
Meditation Without Borders + Rwanda Women’s Network
Rwanda Vedic Meditation Teaching Tour – March 2024
“We make sure women understand the power of themselves.”
Three decades ago, the global community witnessed the horrifying genocide in Rwanda, claiming the lives of over 800,000 people in a mere three and a half months. The aftermath seemed insurmountable, yet today, Rwanda stands as one of Africa's safest destinations, boasting a stable political environment. This remarkable transformation is indebted, in large part, to organizations like the Rwanda Women’s Network.
Mary Balikungeri, founder of the Rwanda Women’s Network, and other trailblazers, realized that women, as givers of life, were the key to bringing life back to their homeland. RWN creates safe spaces for women who endure violence and encourages them to turn inward in order realize their value and potential to be leaders in their own right as well as change-makers of their community and the entire nation. ‘
Evidence shows meditation has the power to help heal trauma and release toxic stress.
In a collaborative effort, Meditation Without Borders is joining forces with the Rwanda Women's Network to support the women who have been victims of gender-based violence as well as the change-makers are tirelessly working to bring peace and harmony to their communities by offering them a simple mental technique to calm the mind, relax the body, and dissolve the lifetime of stress and trauma many have suffered.
Together, we aim to introduce Vedic Meditation to to these “Mothers of Rwanda,” organizing a luxurious four-day meditation retreat on Lake Kivu at the Rushel Kivu Resort for those who work for the RWN as well as other local Rwandan women community leaders and changemakers. Additionally, we will be going into the RWN safe spaces to impart the practice to the women there.
Listen to our interview with Mary Balikungeri, the founder of RWN
Donate to support this movement
We are raising funds for our March 2024 Rwanda teaching tour in partnership with the Rwanda Women’s Network. We plan on this being the first of multiple trips. Your invaluable assistance can make a meaningful impact from any corner of the globe. We firmly believe in the transformative power of even the smallest gestures, knowing that every action has the potential to bring about positive change.
About the Rwanda Women’s Network
Since 1997, the Rwanda Women’s Network, founded by Mary Balikungeri, has been establishing safe spaces across Rwanda. Initially safe spaces were built to support women who were victims of gender based violence during the genocide against the Tutsi, often infected with HIV, and simply had no place to seek help. Throughout the years, safe spaces grew to also function as community and family centers.
Currently Rwandan women have access to 17 safe spaces across 7 districts. They also provide healthcare to over 29K community members in our owned and operated medical clinic in Kigali.
About Meditation Without Borders
Meditation Without Borders is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2019 by Kristen Vandivier and Isabel Keoseyan who shared a common vision that the powerful technique of Vedic Meditation is the most effective catalyst for the unifying social change our world needs.
After completing an intensive curriculum of training under renowned Master Maharishi Vyasananda Thom Knoles, including a three-month immersion program in the Himalayas, Kristen and Isabel returned to their homes to found their practices in 2017. Isabel now has a thriving meditation community in Mexico City and Kristen teaches students from all over the Bay Area, California in addition to caring for her three children. .
“In putting the vision of what we are looking women to be for the future helped them also to accelerate and to get out of that bitterness, sadness; to really make them see themselves as women who are going to transform what has been impossible.”
*We would like to acknowledge that we are looking to teach a spiritually based practice in a continent that has been greatly harmed by colonialism and its attempted destruction of native customs and belief systems. As two white women of privilege from a historically colonizing culture, we wish to make a statement that our intentions are to bring a self-sustaining, empowering practice to the women of Rwanda that will not interfere with any existing traditions. We recognize that the powerful knowledge of Vedic Meditation which originated in India, another colonized area, has spread to the West, and has pooled up in mostly white advantaged communities. Our mission is to help break the dam, and be a bridge to help this knowledge flow to all those who could benefit from it.