Hey, everybody, welcome back to The Covenant Eyes Podcast, Karen Potter here. I'm joined with Rob Stoddard, who we are at NCOSE, the conference. It is so exciting to be here with you. And as Washington DC, we're here, all week at the, summit for Sexual Exploitation. And it's been a great week so far. It has. We've met so many great people, and we have one of those amazing people joining us today. I want to go ahead and introduce our guest. Sure. Tyde-Courtney, would you tell us about your ministry and the work you're doing? And, Wonderful stuff? Yes. Thank you so much for having me. And my name is Tyde-Courtney. I am the founder and CEO of Ballet After Dark. We are a nonprofit organization based in Baltimore City, that provides trauma informed program somatic interventions and, comprehensive educational, resources, for black and brown girls and young women that have been impacted by sexual violence and traumas. And that is great work. So talk to me a little bit about specifically how you guys are helping these youngsters and getting them involved in your ministry. Yes. So we have four signature programs, one of them being a dance company, that you may have seen on season 17 of American Got Talent. Oh, wow. So we actually we use them as a beacon of hope, happiness and healing when it comes to encouraging and, inspiring survivors of trauma to heal. Our other programs focus on engagement, exposure, and art enhancement and appreciation. We do believe that allowing for survivors to be reintroduced to some type of routine really, really complements their healing journey. And also making sure that they have options. So that's why we wanted to make sure that when we were developing our programing, we had a variety for them to choose from. That's great. Putting power back into their hands and letting us know how they want to heal. That's so exciting. So how are you connecting with these young ladies? How do they get into your program? So we've created, a few different ways for us to, connect with community. Some of it is through strategic referral partnerships that we've built with charter schools, other victim service organizations. They focus on survivor justice and also just through creative word of mouth advertising, showing up, at events such as this, connecting with, other organizations and potential partners across various platforms, but also relying on young people that we have activated to get the word out. Also, that's a part of the responsibility with them being with us. That's amazing. So what led you to get involved in this ministry? I mean, do you have a passion for this, or do you have an experience that led you to kind of get into this work? Well, yes, I did happen to survive a devastating trauma that brought me back into, the space using dance in a completely different way. I am a classically trained dancer, so I studied of Vaganova and Cecchetti styles of ballet. Having access to that education always felt like a privilege to me. And being able to repurpose a classical discipline that was not created for people that looked like me and being able to reclaim it, and to repurpose it so that it's a joyful healing modality, versus it being this very intimidating and strict discipline. Wow. Okay, so the young ladies that come and, do the dance with you, how long of a how long are they with you? Are you doing some, care ongoing after that, or is it just, during the time that they're they're doing the dance? And how does it work? So our programing is developed for girls and young women ages 6 to 24. They have the option to explore, multiple programs underneath of the organization. Or they could be like one of our youth peer educators here, Indigo, who started by participating in individual one off workshops and eventually evolved into, camp participant and now a youth worker. It really depends on the track that they want to have whether they take a stronger interest in dance. That's something they want to pursue. More seriously, because that that is the particular ministry that is calling to them when it comes to their healing journey. They may also find that education and policy is something that they're more interested in, because we have peer education programs for girls that are led by our girls. So again, back to what I said earlier. It's about creating the option for them. We don't have a cutoff, you know, for anything. Yeah. That's an amazing. Well, you know, I love that you are incorporating the arts and dance and music into the healing journey. You know, there's so many studies that show that that can be really, really helpful when someone is, you know, going through trauma or recovering from trauma. How did you kind of establish that this would be the path forward for these girls, and that it would actually make such an impact? Well, dance is a fundamental form of expression. Yeah. So it's in you before you even know it's in you. So, it was very much about drawing that connection and painting the picture so that others could understand how powerful it is and creating the access to it. We work with a lot of survivors coming from low income families. There are a lot of barriers that would keep them from being able to access free programing and resources like this. So we've taken all of that into consideration and have created this platform, this holistic platform for them to engage with when they are able to. Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. Do you do you have a success story that that comes to mind that you could share? Well, I mean, yeah, the whole thing is a success story. Honestly, when you think about, the fact that this is something that was birthed as a result of my own intense need for survival and healing, launching an organization that just started out as dropping dance therapy classes for the community. And now we have, four signature programs. We have a short film that's been produced by Queen Latifah, Proctor& Gamble, that premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. Wow. We also had the America's Got Talent opportunity. We've had tons of commercial opportunities that have come of this, and then also recently just being given the opportunity and the funding to build out the peer education program for the young ones. Okay. So that I can really, really have an idea of what the future is going to look like when it comes to hope, happiness and healing. Yeah. So, yeah. Actually, how can people engage if they want to support your ministry or get involved in some way? How can they reach out to you and your ministry? Yes. So we are BalletAfterDark on everything. Everything all right? You can email us at Info at Ballet After Dark and visit our website at BalletAfterDark.com. Awesome. This was an incredible interview and it's been a real joy learning about your work. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you. And thank you so. Much. To all of our listeners out there. Thank you for tuning in to this episode. And be sure to check the show notes and we'll put links to everything. So you can check it out for yourself. Thank you. Take care. God bless you.