Spirit Awakening Foundation

Since 1995, SAF has been dedicated to stopping the cycles of child abuse and neglect and has served as a leader in providing alternatives to incarcerating youth. With programs hailed as “creative, innovative and powerful” by the California State Department of Justice, SAF is nationally recognized as a pioneer in developing and offering restorative, trauma-informed, prevention, and intervention programs to underserved, incarcerated and systems-involved youth in Los Angeles County. SAF has been awarded a number of prestigious recognitions, including the Best of Santa Monica Nonprofits Awards, being inducted into the Santa Monica Business Hall of Fame and receiving the Southern California Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine Leadership Award. As an organization founded and run by Akuyoe Graham, a woman of color (who hails from Ghana, West Africa), SAF exists to stand up against racism, inequality and injustice, all the while offering our young people tools and techniques needed to live in a more inclusive, just and safe world. SAF has supported thousands of young people since its inception and currently offers our prevention, intervention and mentoring programs and services in several public high schools, continuation high schools and juvenile probation facilities all throughout Los Angeles County. Using the tools of meditation, self-reflection, creative writing, visual arts, mentorship, service, and leadership training, all of which have been guided by evidence-based research, SAF is able to accomplish our mission to build character and raise self-esteem, one child at a time.