|
|
Location: Upstate NY | Om Namah Sivaya
I found a video about this group on youtube. www.streetyoga.org
The world needs more people like this. |
|
| |
|
Location: Upstate NY | Here is the link to the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE_7KmZJwPI
Om Shanti,
Ravi |
|
| |
|
| Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful! Now that’s what Yoga is all about to me. I can’t thank you enough for posting that link. |
|
| |
|
Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
    
| Very nice - Portland is a very liveable city due to programs like this  |
|
| |
|
Location: Upstate NY | I actually found myself in tears towards the end of the video. It really puts into perspective that one person can make a difference. |
|
| |
|
| Me also Ravi (a tear dropping on Buddha’s face). I wondered where I could put my Yoga experience to work. Now I think, the homeless kids on the street. |
|
| |
|
| Wow! 
This was very touching.
Also: those kids are pretty good at it too! |
|
| |
|
| The last boy took me over the top and made me cry. |
|
| |
|
| Very cool. They also have a website if you want to help:
www.streetyoga.org |
|
| |
|
| That was really beautiful. |
|
| |
|
| Jambo - 2006-12-15 5:23 PMMe also Ravi (a tear dropping on Buddha’s face). I wondered where I could put my Yoga experience to work. Now I think, the homeless kids on the street.
Hi Jambo!
I live in Portland, and after viewing the video was interested in the program and checked out the web site. There is info on what to consider when starting a program at:
http://streetyoga.org/startingProgram
and if you get on their Wiki (I got there by just following some links, pretty easy) there is an outline of the curriculum they used at their last teacher training (just an outline)
Outside In, the first agency, I believe, to work with Street Yoga, has been around since before I came to Portland 32 years ago. Back then, the big issue was you could stay with them for a day or two and they would not contact your parents if you didn't want that. Who even thinks about that now? With the youth I have known that were at one time homeless, there was no parent to contact that cared.
I spent 3 years teaching wildly naughty youth in a GED program, and the only kids I wasn't rock bottom sure of in our relationship were the kids who had spent time homeless on the street without a parent's protection. All I can say is, it really f*cks you up, more than gangs, violence, poverty, even drug addiction. The way kids are preyed upon by adults when they are homeless completely messes with the developement of their moral integrity and trust.
The Oregonian had an article a few months ago about a yoga program in the women's jail. It was also really moving. If I ever end up in jail, I hope there is a yoga class, too.
|
|
| |
|
Location: Upstate NY | Om Namah Sivaya,
Swamiji says there is no better way towards realisation than through Karma Yoga. The Ashram I attend occasionally has a prison outreach program also but I feel there is no bettter program than the Street Yoga program helping the disadvantaged youth in horrible circumstances.
Somedays it is so frustrating to be a householder as my heart yearns to pick up and go help...... but I know that my priority right now is to raise my kids with the values and morals that will encompass them to go out in the world and be the light.
Om Shanti,
Ravi |
|
| |
|
Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| I tried to post here earlier but couldn't compose the words properly. Let's try again.
I think it is important to remember that there are more ways to serve than by serving the poorest and most needy. While some, whom I applaud, do this work and are called to it, it is not for everyone. (As I tried to say before, the most interesting thing about this is observing my own reactions, which I am now seeing come from a very deep place!) "Regular" folk need help, too. "Normal" kids need to be taught, too. Just as we need lifeguards to rescue drowning swimmers, we need swimming teachers and people to train the lifeguards. I have always felt this is the work I was intended to do and honestly, that we need the MOST people to do, because there are still more "typical" people than poor, homeless, whatever.
Now the deep place: I was a welfare kid with a single mother long before either of those terms were able to be used in polite company. In the mid 60's, divorce was not sung about on the radio or discussed on TV. It was shameful and embarrassing. I was lucky to have a wonderful mother and terrific extended family who helped us have a fairly decent childhood and not feel the stereotypes of what was then termed a "broken" family. But every time (especially at Christmas) I gave pennies for the collection kettle or brought in canned food for a food drive at school, I wondered who the heck was getting this help, because it certainly never came back to us. And every time now I hear about charities giving teddy bears to "needy" kids I do a slow burn, because I know both from observation and experience that this is not what these kids need.
I guess my point is that there are so many of us out there who appear to be living a nice, comfortable life but have these little hurts, small remnants of childhood or even karmic issues that need to be worked on. And somebody has to be there to help us, too! I never know what baggage the apparently comfortable middle class people I teach are bringing in with them. I may never see that nice woman who came into the free class in our beautiful community centre again, but if I change her life for the better, it may create ripples of good effects for hundreds of people. Maybe SHE will be inspired to go work on the street, where I am not suited to go.
I don't know if any of this makes sense to anyone else. I am grateful for this group for giving me the opportunity to delve deep and see things in myself that were not clear before. Thank you and Namaste. |
|
| |
|
| If I ever pursue yoga far enough to consider teacher training, I think I will bring yoga into the carceral system. I happen to be a criminologist, so it would make a lot of sense. I also believe that the type of attitude and outlook that is fostered by yoga practice could be a force for positive change in the life of criminalized people. I think that what often leads to crime involves emotions and experiences that one has trouble coping with, especially with regards to aggression and also to a low self-worth... If you feel like you can't achieve, fit in or be fulfilled living life in a law abiding way, it becomes easier to make choices that can land you in prison.
I'm not sure how receptive an adult male carceral population would be to yoga, especially in an environment where asserting your manliness, strength and coldness becomes a matter of survival and self-defence. A women's institution would probably be a better (easier, at least) place to start. I glad to see that this Street Yoga program appears to successfully drawn in boys and girls, because I think the boys will benefit from this program even more vitally than the girls. Social norms about masculinity continue to push young boys and men towards expressing negative emotions (like aggression, dominance, apathy, etc.) that can eventually lead to crime. I think yoga can bring them to inner peace and empathy and help guide them away from these choices. Kudos to those who started this wonderful program.
sp |
|
| |
|
Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| sp - have you heard of the Prison Ashram Project? http://www.humankindness.org/project.html |
|
| |
|
| That's unfamiliar to me tourist, I'll read up about it later on as I've class to attend shortly. Thanks for the link. sp |
|
| |
|
Location: Upstate NY | The Sivananda Ashram in NY has the same progam. Once a week one of the resident teachers goes to the prison. Swami Vishnu Devananda started the program in the late 70's. It has been very successful.
I too have started teaching at a local state sercured facility for the criminally insane. I was pretty nervous at first but once I got there i have done nothing but enjoyed myself. In fact it was just going to be a four class deal as one of the recreation aides was writing a paper on the before and after effects of yoga with the inmates. But because of a higher and higher turn-out every week I have been asked to come once a week permantly.
As this is a worthwhile program my heart still goes out to the "enlightened" souls that are part of the Street Yoga program.
Om Shanti,
Ravi |
|
| |
|
Extreme Veteran
Posts: 399
Location: Oregon | Has anyone here gone through the program? I just might. It's starting Feb. 8-10 in Portland. |
|
| |
|
| I have great respect for Street Yoga, and had a conversation with them when they were starting up. One thing I really admire is that they recognize the need to train the instructors. I volunteered teaching yoga at a couple of homeless youth centers, and I can honestly say that even though I did my best, specific training would have helped. This was a special population who is going through something that I have never experienced, and knowing more would have helped me be a better teacher for the students I served.
I really admire Street Yoga for not only asking for teachers to volunteer but also for making teachers do training so that the teachers are prepared.
There's another cool organization I've heard of that serves women in rehab programs, domestic violence shelters and more called Yoga Hope: http://yogahope.org/. They even have a scholarship program for their students to go through yoga teacher training at some point. |
|
| |
|
Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| diy - I am glad to hear they train the teachers for that work. I find a great deal of irony in middle to upper class folk being do-gooders and diving into help the "unfortunate" with good intentions but not a single clue. I knew someone who could never figure out why a group she desperately wanted to help couldn't accept her. Might have had something to do with driving up to their neighbourhood in a Mercedes.....  |
|
| |
|
| tourist - 2008-01-19 10:20 AM
I knew someone who could never figure out why a group she desperately wanted to help couldn't accept her. Might have had something to do with driving up to their neighbourhood in a Mercedes.....
We need to think sometimes, don't we! In two jobs during my life I had the wonderful opportunity to work with specialists in cultural diversity training. I think it's something all of us could use (and I could use more of course). We often insult people without even knowing it. |
|
| |
|
Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| She was really nice and really smart and had a lot to offer...but I guess that's why they call them blind spots, eh? |
|
| |
|
Extreme Veteran
Posts: 399
Location: Oregon | Well... I've signed up and will be taking the next training session offered by Street Yoga in February. I've inquired at my local youth homeless shelter if it's something they'd like to offer. I think I'm going to volunteer there regardless. They always need evening volunteers. |
|
| |
|
| that sounds cool.
i know that in my own volunteer work--whether teaching yoga or just doing whatever--i introduce myself as being ignorant, needing the help of those around me (the workers and those for whom we are working), and apologizing up front for anything that i do without realizing that it's sensitive.
it's always gotten me a very long way.  |
|
| |
|
| Thanks Ellen for reviving this thread. We need to keep this organization and others like it out front. More access to yoga is the goal. I think it take real yogi guts to serve the poorest and most needy. It's amusing when reactions are about silly stoies about rich honeys driving expensive cars into the 'hood'.
I was happy to see some other worthy organizations mentioned in the responses. Here is another, Art of Yoga Project http://www.theartofyogaproject.org as they put it “The mission of The Art of Yoga Project is to lead teen girls in the California juvenile justice system toward accountability to self, others and community by providing practical tools to effect behavioral change”.
Edited by Jambo 2008-01-24 6:34 PM
|
|
| |
Street Yoga
