Mindfulness Through Art
Taarika Foundation is excited to announce the launch of a new program, “Five Senses Art” led by our very own talented youth ambassadors.
Creating art has been scientifically proven to reduce stress and improve mood in kids.
The goal of this program is to bring joy through art by organizing (100% free) community-wide workshops in arts, crafts, dance and creative writing, incorporating mindfulness practices by Dr. Leena Khanzode.
Other Projects & Initiatives
In Oct. 2020, our alumna youth ambassador, Malavika Eby, authored The Gift That Keeps on Giving, a fourteen-chapter book providing a personal and detailed framework for self-growth as a high-school student braving today’s competitive educational climate. The 206-page guidebook empowers 13- to 18-year-olds to develop emotional regulation and stress-management skills, rooted in practices that promote self-awareness in regards to negative inner-dialogue.
TGTKG incorporates firsthand accounts from Bay Area students at competitive institutions, Stanford-educated Child and Adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Leena Khanzode, and leading pioneer in self-compassion research, Dr. Karen Bluth. The work was adopted in early 2021 as a class resource by the international non-profit, Center for Mindful Self-Compassion (CMSC).
I greatly value [this] book and the contribution it makes to teen mental health. [The Gift That Keeps on Giving] is timely and very pertinent to high school students, parents and teachers. […] It gives me strength and inspiration.
School-based Therapist at Monta Vista High School, Cupertino
Our Community Partners
Saahas for Cause
www.saahasforcause.org
We are thrilled to announce that the Taarika Foundation and Saahas For Cause recently partnered to create a year-long collaborative video series on mental health disorders, ranging from General Anxiety Disorder to Schizophrenia.
Palo Alto Medical Foundation
www.sutterhealth.org, www.sutterhealth.org/pamf/services/pediatric/parent-education-videos-pamf#
We are honored to share that both our podcast series, “Mindful, Beautiful and Thriving,” and our YouTube channel, “Supporting the Whole Child,” are supported by a grant from the PAMF Group Community Health Care Endowment Fund.
NAMI
www.nami.org
NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. Taarika Foundation is an annual organizer for NAMIWalk in the Cupertino-San Jose area. In 2021, we raised over $795 to donate to NAMI.
Safespace
www.safespace.org
Taarika Foundation frequently interviews kind and thoughtful students of all backgrounds from SafeSpace for our podcast and YouTube series, while supporting and sharing the video content created by the SafeSpace team. The two groups also attend mental health events together to fundraise and raise awareness for mental health causes.
Vivensity, Inc
www.vivensity.com
Vivensity is the founding company of ImSparked, a school-based social-emotional learning platform for middle- and high-schoolers. Taarika Foundation writes grants to sponsor low-income school districts to adopt the ImSparked platform at their schools.
Crack the Wellness Code(CWC)
Crack the Wellness Code is a wellness platform with the goal of improving the wellbeing of South Asians by educating, inspiring, empowering, and impacting communities. Their focus is mainly on those in the San Francisco Bay Area, but their reach stretches across the world.
A Future For Every Child (AFEC) – FreeFlight Club
www.afutureforeverychild.org/freeflight
FreeFlight is a newly launched multi-year self-discovery program for middle and high school-aged children coming together as a parent-child affinity group. The Taarika Foundation is offering scholarships for numerous students to take part in the program at a reduced cost.
Myndtree
www.myndtree.org
The Taarika Foundation and Myndtree often join hands to conduct workshops and community programs for people to learn about and engage with mindfulness in a safe space.
KinderCompass
Taarika Foundation is supporting the recent launch of KinderCompass, an organization founded by Alex Espinosa, LMFT with www.thriveworks.com and Marina Barnes, Wellness Center Coordinator at Saratoga High School and volunteer Program Director of MSC-Teens at CMSC. KinderCompass focuses on helping teens explore how the inner critical voice contributes to stress and introduces ways of being with our struggles in a more compassionate way. The skills to build a self-compassion toolkit is the essence of CMSC’s Mindful Self-Compassion for Teens Program (formerly known as Making Friends with Yourself).
PARTNER WITH US
If you lead or work with a mental health-serving, healthcare-oriented, and/or community-service organization and are interested to partner with the Taarika Foundation, please reach out to us through our contact form or our email address (info@taarika.org).
If your organization or company serves a different population than those listed above, the Taarika Foundation is still excited to see what kinds of projects we might be able to work on together. In your message to us, please state some introductory details about your organization/company and a couple ideas describing what our partnership might look like. We wholeheartedly appreciate your support!
Taarika Foundation 