Mariam Gates is a passionate and inspiring teacher with over 15 years of experience working with young people. Through the Empowered Kids Program she has combined her dedication to teaching yoga with her skills as an educator to guide children in accessing their own inner source of strength, confidence, problem-solving and creativity.

The Empowered Kids Yoga Program is taught in the Boston and Lexington Public Schools and is also in its third year of being taught as a Professional Development Series for public school teachers: (YOGA 101)Yoga off the Mat: Bringing Yoga into the Classroom Setting-- that now has a waiting list for all sessions. Mariam is in the process of piloting a wellness program for teens and pre-teens that will be turned into a “self-help challenge” book for that age group and she has completed the manuscript for an Empowered Kids book that targets 4-8 year olds. Empowered Kids Teacher Trainings are now being offered nationally and in 2002 Mariam began a highly successful teen yoga challenge summer series.

Mariam and her husband, author and teacher, Rolf Gates (Meditations from the Mat, Random House) owned and ran Boston’s Best Yoga Studio for three years before relocating to NYC in the spring 2006. The Gates’ travel regularly with their two children throughout the United States and abroad offering workshops, teacher trainings and week-long intensives in Vinyasa Yoga and the principles of alignment.

Mariam received her Masters in Education fro Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1997. She taught in the Boston Public Schools and directed the Citizen Schools program in Dorchester, MA, a nationally recognized enrichment program for 9-13 year-olds before creating the Empowered Kids program.

The world is changing...

Mariam and her staff currently teach in the Tufts Medical School Complementary practices module and participate in the Complementary Practices Panel Forum. Among her biggest passions is her current work to develop a protocol for studying the effects of yoga on children with chronic illness.