Bring us to you

Have a group? We’ll come to you!

Defend Yourself offers workshops and classes of any length, from an hour-long workshop to a year-round class. All of our programs cover:

• Prevention and awareness: steps you can take to prevent or avoid an attack or abuse.
• Assertiveness and verbal self-defense: using words and body language to stop annoying or intrusive behavior and to keep a situation from escalating.
• Physical self-defense: practical techniques to end a physical attack and get to safety.

All of our classes are tailored to the life situations and needs of the participants. We present age-appropriate material for students age 3 and up! Everyone can join in: No matter how out of shape you are, or what physical limitations you have, you can do things to protect yourself.

All Defend Yourself programs are interactive: We involve participants in brainstorming, role-playing, and exercises. Our approach is positive, empowering, and upbeat: We don’t focus on how scary it is that violence and abuse happen, but rather on options we all have and ways we can take care of ourselves.

Even in a short workshop, people learn concrete skills they can use. The longer the class time, the more we cover different situations, respond to the risks in students’ lives, practice to make the techniques second nature (so you’ll have them when you need them), and deal with complex, real-life situations.

Contact us at 301.608.3708 or by email. We can customize a workshop for your group!

We can teach workshops of any length. Here are some examples:

Who’s learning to defend themselves?

These are some of the places Defend Yourself has held classes and workshops. If you want to organize a workshop for your school, community group, workplace, or whatever, call 301.608.3708 or email us.

Workplaces

• D.C. Public Libraries
• Center for American Progress
• Community Connections
• Council of Chief State School Officers
• D.C. Central Kitchen
• Discovery Communications
• Golden Triangle Business Improvement District
• Greenpeace
• Humanity and Inclusion
• Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
• Smithsonian Institution
• World Bank

Community and faith groups

• American Association of University Women
• Asian Pacific American Bar Assn. of DC
• Asian Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project
• Children’s Hospital/Boys Club, Girls Club
• Community Connections
• D.C. Rape Crisis Center
• D.C. Anti-Violence Project/The D.C. Center for the LGBT Community
• Disability Partnerships
• Fort Belvoir/Family Support Program
• Generation Hope
• Girl Scout troops (lots!)
• Girls Inc.
• Islamic Center of Maryland
• Mary’s Center
• Returned Peace Corp Volunteers Washington
• ScholarChips
• Washington Ethical Society
• Willow Street Yoga

Schools — elementary + middle

• Holton-Arms
• Oneness Family School
• Sandy Spring Friends School, high school and middle school
• SISTERS/Family Support Center: E. Brooke Lee MS, Kennedy HS, Montgomery Village MS, Parkland MS, Twinbrook Community Center, Earle B. Wood MS, Julius West MS, Watkins Mill HS
• North Bethesda Middle School, after-school program

Schools — high

• Barrie School
• National Cathedral School
• Sherwood High School

Schools — college+

• Alpha Delta Alpha Delta Pi GWU
• University of Md.
• American University Law and Government Program
• Carlos Rosario International School
• Georgetown University
• Marymount University

If you want to organize a workshop for your school, community group, workplace, or whatever, we can do it! Contact us.