Robyn Donaldson, J.D.

Executive Director

Robyn has worked with national organizations and leaders such as Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight Action, Latosha Brown, and Cliff and April Albright’s BlackVoters Matter, Sen. Jon Ossoff’s and President Biden’s senatorial and presidential campaigns; U.S. Institute of Peace, Alliance for Peacebuilding, Prairie Hills School District #144, Local Progress and more.


Robyn has been teaching yoga for nearly 15 years. She’s a Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider; and trains beginning to advanced Yoga Teachers. She is also the Co-Founder of Paths to Peace, a team of Trauma Informed Yoga Educators, Healing Artists and Therapists who offer consulting and programming in Mental Health, Trauma Informed Care, Community Building and Restorative Justice.

Robyn has co-created and designed various mental health programs for some of the top organizations in the country. She has over 1,000 hours of expert and specialized training in Trauma Informed Yoga, Restorative Justice Circles, Prison Informed Yoga, Juvenile Justice Meditation, Building Inclusive Communities through Movement, Trauma Informed Yoga for Children and Teens; and Racialized Trauma.

She also has two Yoga Teacher Trainings in Hatha and Vinyasa Yoga. Robyn is 1 out of 5 black teachers in the world who has an Advanced Yoga Teacher Training in Prana Vinyasa. She’s the ONLY Prana Vinyasa and Trauma Informed Yoga Teacher in Illinois AND Georgia.


Robyn has over 3,000 hours of yoga teaching experience across various platforms and communities: yoga studios, gyms, corporate settings, municipalities, junior high schools, senior living communities, conferences and virtually through online classes. She taught yoga for 5 years at the Centers for Disease Control in their Corporate Wellness Centers across 5 CDC campuses in Atlanta, GA.


During that time she Co-Founded, The Yoga House ATL, a private home yoga studio that centered black people, women of color and larger bodied practitioners who were interested in yoga, but did not feel comfortable going to a conventional yoga studio.


She’s a former lawyer who is passionate about politics, who worked on Jon Ossoff’s 2020 Senate Runoff Campaign; for Stacey Abrams’ organizations and Barack Obama’s historic 2008 presidential campaign. She’s an advocate and activist for social change and eradicating racism.


Robyn is a proud graduate from the University of Illinois-Chicago Law School and Florida A&M University (FAMU). She also studied International Human Rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Western Cape in South Africa and University College London in the UK.

Dr. Keme Hawkins

Director of Facilitators

Believes in the value of mental health programming, using yoga, meditation, and other healing arts to address trauma and explore unconscious thoughts and emotions. Keme is a Yoga and Meditation Teacher with Paths to Peace Yoga School and Co-Founder of Paths to Peace, trauma informed mental health programming.

She works to integrate Paths to Peace programming into communities. She’s trained in Trauma Informed Yoga for Children and Teens and in Restorative Justice Listening Circles facilitation. Keme teaches various healing arts techniques for trauma informed care.

Her pursuit of healing arts supported her in processing familial dysfunction connected to her father’s execution on death row. Further healing was bolstered by her academic work, which includes her doctoral research on African Diaspora religious and artistic traditions in the Caribbean and South America.

She has taught at Emory University and University Wisconsin-Madison. She also has a Master’s in African-American Art and Literature. Keme speaks many languages including Brazilian Portuguese and she is currently learning ASL/ BASL. She's also a Screenwriter, based in Atlanta, GA.


Keme is the Director of Facilitators for "We the Peace", a 501c3 focused on youth and community based mental health and trauma informed programming. She's also the Founder of BreatheWithKeme.com.


Barbara Donaldson 

President & Treasurer

Barbara Donaldson is a retired Educator whose career spans over 40 years. After retiring as a Principal of an elementary school in the south suburbs of Chicago, she started Edudon, Inc., an educational consulting company, which focused on student teacher development and employment opportunities for high school students entering the workforce.


Barbara has a variety of experience in education. She was an Assistant Principal, Guidance Counselor, Librarian and classroom teacher.


Her dedication to education led her to obtaining her Master’s of Arts in Human Learning and Development/Urban Education; and she obtained her Bachelor’s of Science in Elementary Education from DePaul University.


Barbara has served on the Girl Scouts of America’s Executive Board; and she has volunteered for various organizations, such as the League of Women Voters and the Boys and Girls Club of America. She’s a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.


Presently, she is a Board Member of Grande Prairie Library District and serves on the Executive Board of We the Peace, a local not for profit, which offers scholarships and youth mental health programs.

Joe Bertrand

Secretary


Joe Bertrand has a variety of government experience in cities and local municipalities, as well as community and relations and outreach. His career has included being the Executive Director of the Hazel Crest Park District; City Manager, a Board of Director for The Link and Options Center; and Trustee for the Markham, Illinois Fire Pension Board. Bertrand has served as a Trustee of the Bremen Township; and Liaison to the Mayor of Hazel Crest, IL. Presently, he’s a City Council Member of the Village of Markham.




Our

Values

We’re dedicated to providing opportunities and creative experiences for BIPOC youth and people from marginalized groups to live a healthy and empowered life! 

We value somatic and embodied movement in addressing trauma stuck in the body. We appreciate the power of art, sound and literacy as healing modalities to cultivate resilience, confidence and inner peace.


We value Mind/Body/Emotional awareness and connection, as a necessary part of regulating the nervous system; and preventing dis-ease in the body, mind and spirit.

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