Cause Index

Mindful Education

Mindful Education is a Non-Profit Organisation that offer mindfulness training to educators, with a particular focus on educators from under-resourced schools and learning institutions.
The main purpose of the organisation is to promote the development of socially and emotionally competent educators with the capacity to create a classroom environment that is conductive to learning and fosters positive development. Furthermore, the aim is to empower educators with mindfulness techniques that they can use in the classroom to support students who experience social and emotional challenges.
Mindful Education was founded in South Africa, where educators face many challenges, including classroom size, an increasing administrative workload, language barriers and increasing incidents of violence in schools. Often, the students they teach face social challenges such as lack of adequate income, housing and healthcare. Many students come from communities where unemployment is endemic, gang and domestic violence is commonplace and drug and alcohol misuse is widespread. South Africa can be described as a society characterized by high rates of violence and trauma. This results in above average high stress levels in South African educators and students. Trauma and fear is often a reality in the South African learning environment which can impede the learning process. As a result of the aforementioned challenges, that both educators and students face, educators are struggling to deliver the level of education that will lay a strong foundation for economic growth and social change in South Africa.
Mindfulness training for educators have the potential to improve the quality of education through the support of both teachers and students. The quality of education is vital to enable students to become economically productive and sustain their own livelihood, it supports individual well-being and also contributes to peaceful and democratic societies. Education can provide the foundation for economic growth, social change and transformation which can lead to a more prosperous, equitable and peaceful world.