Enhanced Resilience Training ™
Our Mission
To protect vulnerable people from violence and oppression through the platform of martial arts
What is The Enhanced Resilience Training (ERT)
Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, making you feel helpless in a dangerous world. Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated can be traumatic, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm.
The Enhanced Resilience Program ™ of Martial Arts for Justice works with genocide survivors; victims of rape, domestic violence, bullying, sexual abuse, and various other atrocities. Through the platform of psychoeducation on the effects of trauma, and martial arts training, we assist trauma survivors in breaking the helpless and powerless state that their traumatic experiences have induced. Victims of trauma learn how to tap into their own resilience, integrate their traumatic experiences in a safe and supported environment and assume living their lives with a greater sense of empowerment and personal alignment.
Trauma Therapist | 2.0.
Listen to Master Dean Siminoff, he is the spotlight on the Podcast about Martial Arts, Justice & Treating Trauma.
Testimonials
My name is Xaverine Mujawayezu; i am the first vice president of Avega at National Level. We like this training starting from the introduction you presented to us. What Maj is doing will help us in our daily life in particular and in the lives of our members in general, in the journey of healing trauma among our parents, our people.
We were well trained this time. We used to just apply the tradition trauma therapy, but this time our therapists have come here to learn the theory part with physical activities and self defence in order to deliver this program to our beneficiaries in return. In addition to that, they will also help children of these widows.
We who witnessed the training, we could remark that while people are being trained, all their focus and mind concentrate in the training. This program is very interresting and enjoyable to everyone. The joy and hope absorbed through this training makes widows and vulnerable people overcome their sadness and misery thus, they release all distress and trauma.
This is a new approach that will help our widows, old ladies, we expect a remarkable outcome. We have confirmed that our members and old ladies will like and enjoy this enhanced resilience program. By trying this approach to some of thd elderly women, we have come to a conclusion that this program will be possible to work for them.
We are expecting to learn a lot from it and recover our normal life once again by overcoming sorrow and misery, and gain true joy and hapiness. We thank you very much, we wish you the best and we are hopeful to have you come back again and train further sessions to our beneficiaries and the young people.
Thank you
In the news
How Genocide widows use martial arts to heal from trauma
When someone suffers from trauma, it is mostly because of their inability to adequately respond to a threat. This has been the story of more than 30 AVEGA Agahozo widows across all districts in the country, who survived the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. 24 years after the Genocide, many of them attest that the traditional therapy they had been subjected to, at some point failed to heal them completely.
Local charity teaches trauma resilience in Rwanda
The same discipline and training that taekwondo students are learning in the West Kootenay is helping survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide overcome their lingering trauma.
Kootenay Martial Arts owner Dean Siminoff recently returned from Rwanda where he used martial arts to train 35 therapists who work with genocide survivors.
The training is part of a program called Enhanced Resilience that uses martial arts to help trauma survivors break out of the helpless and powerless state that these devastating experiences have created.
Master Siminoff on instilling resilience through martial arts
Who is Master Dean Siminoff and how did you get involved in martial arts?
I started practicing martial arts in 1994, and I have been doing it for 24 years now. The longer I trained the more I wondered what more there was to martial arts.