David Jan Jurasek - former child refugee, author, therapist, martial arts instructor

David Jan Jurasek is a former child refugee from the former Czechoslovakia. His family escaped the regime there and eventually ended up in Canada where he grew up there struggling to make sense of loss and trauma and eventually turned to the creative expression and martial arts to help him channel his emotions before later training as a child and family therapist. He has since become a husband, a father, and co-author of a series of children’s books, and he has helped developed a therapeutic martial arts program called Young Warriors that has been expanding into more than 15 schools.

As if that wasn’t enough he also runs an improve company called Inspired Playback Theatre, which focuses on reflecting back, with compassion and empathy, the true stories of diverse audience members who are often not listened to. Recently, David also had a brush with cancer ~ which he says he has thankfully healed from but it helped him to see more clearly what his life is all about.