This week marks the launch of Mindfulness-SOS for Ukrainians, a digital mindfulness-based intervention for Ukrainian refugees. Once displaced people have found physical safety, Mindfulness-SOS for Ukrainians is designed to help them cultivate the inner resources of trust, resilience, and compassion.
“Our program aims to help people find those moments of refuge,” says Amit Bernstein, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Haifa, Israel, and director of The Moments of Refuge Project. Bernstein and his team developed Mindfulness-SOS for Ukrainians in partnership with the Ukrainian refugee community, Global Empowerment Mission, Pandemic of Love, SmartAID, the Ukrainian Mindful Awareness Project, and Mindful.org.
“It’s hard to recover and heal if you’re not in a state where you feel safe,” Bernstein says. Throughout his years of working to support refugees, he’s found that although people may physically arrive in a safe space, recovering a felt sense of safety is often a lingering challenge.
“Mindfulness-SOS builds on a pre-existing capacity in people to be resilient, recover, and flourish. It’s not magic. It’s not medicine…it is about empowering a pre-existing capacity through these…
