This project is a community-university collaboration, including members from Centro Hispano of Dane County, Mindfulness for the People, Madison Metropolitan School District, Menominee Nation, UW Health Mindfulness Program, and the Center for Healthy Minds.
This project seeks to address a paradox at the heart of the mindfulness movement; the intent of mindfulness is to relieve suffering, but mindfulness has become wrapped in white dominant culture, making mindfulness-based programs monocultural, exclusive, and inequitable. In order for mindfulness to fulfill its purpose of relieving suffering for all, mindfulness-based programs must be accessible – geographically, economically, and culturally. Geographic and economic barriers to access can be overcome by offering mindfulness within community settings for free or at rates that do not exclude access to anyone. We believe cultural responsivity requires cultural authenticity and that the manifestation of mindfulness within cultural contexts may differ. Therefore, to achieve cultural responsivity, it is essential that the individuals developing and delivering mindfulness-based programs represent the diversity of cultures and experiences.
The Mindfulness For All project has received a $1.15 million grant to make mindfulness practice and teacher-training freely available in the local Latinx community, to Menominee tribal members on the Menominee reservation, and to African-American staff in the Madison Metropolitan School District.
Mindfulness For All is working closely with Primordial Multicultural Healing Community.