Ira Raines
After being trained in April 2022 in an international course for Empowerment Self Defense instruction in Prague I have been working with groups of women, girls, boys, children, and mixed-gender and multi-age groups regularly. I teach independently & work in partnership with El HaLev, Israeli leading NGO that has been teaching and developing ESD for more than two decades. As an independent instructor, I conduct online and in presence workshops “Personal Safety in Daily Life and Emergency Situations,” providing accessible, simple, and effective tools for physical and verbal self-defense and boundary-setting. These workshops are suitable for any group type or and can vary in duration, ranging from 1.5 hours to an extended course over several sessions. I am the founder and mentor of ESD4Ukraine project, providing Empowerment Self Defense training for Ukrainian refugees. Since January 2023, I have delivered 1.5–2.5 hour ESD in-person sessions to 459 refugees—primarily women and also children—through 11 training visits to Berlin. As an integral part of the project, I also initiated the preparation of instructors for Training of Trainers programs and supported them during their initial stages of training delivery. In addition to my work in Empowerment Self Defense, I am in the process of becoming an Impact Safety Lead Instructor. This pathway began in March 2023 through a bi-weekly in-person seminar in Israel, continued with assisting two Impact seminars at El Halev, and was temporarily paused following the events of 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war. As a martial artist, I have been practicing Wu-Wei Gung-Fu since 2008. I was certified in 2020 and began teaching in 2021, founding a first-of-its-kind Wu-Wei “women-only” class. Since the age of 15, I have taught and later developed training programs and methodologies in informal, humanistic education for youth and families. Training and education: International ESD Trainer with ESD Global since 2022, Prague, Czech Republic Israeli ESD Trainer with El Halev since 2023, Jerusalem, Israel Wu-Wei Gung-Fu practitioner since 2007 and instructor since 2020 Informal Education facilitator since 1998 and methodologist since 2010 NGO Administration MBA with Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 2014 History of Arts BA and Business Administration BA from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 2007