Posts from ‘activism’
Yoga Without Borders, a Toronto-based yoga service organization dedicated to social change, is hosting its first Take Action summit on Saturday, January 28. With only 60 available spots, the event is already sold out, but it will be streamed online at livestream.com/yogawithoutborders.
The idea behind the summit is to bring together yoga organizations committed to social service and grassroots activism along with experts in networking and fundraising to help get their message out. Networking guru Donna Messer and social media expert Syerah Virani will be among the speakers.
“The idea is to gather and pool our resources,” says Salimah Kassim-Lakha [the director of Yoga Without Borders], calling it an opportunity to create a network that will be supportive and motivating.
“A lot of times grassroots activists stay within their own circles and don’t hear about what others are doing. We end up reinventing the wheel, over and over again.”
Among the seven organizations participating are: Freeing the Human Spirit, which has created a yoga program for Canadian inmates; Off the Mat into the World, which has recently focused on raising funds for Haiti; and Sangha of Hope, which uses trauma-sensitive yoga to help female survivors of physical, mental and sexual violence. (via healthzone.ca)
Image via yogadawg.blogspot.com
Okay y’all. Last week I declared that I’m starting to feel it’s more effective to withhold comment on viral video yoga “controversies” than to get sucked into a predictable and cyclical conversation which ultimately results in increased brand recognition. Even though I want to advocate silence – for myself at least, as I find the cycle too frustrating and energy-draining – I also have to admit that I find the idea of silence a little unnerving. I value dialogue and believe in the power of conversation.
Luckily, YogaDawg came up with a pointed, yet typically light response with the above graphic. It’s interesting to think of the community as being exploited, rather than the women featured in sexualized yoga advertising – that puts a different spin on things, for me.
Is there a way to stimulate healthy discussion without fueling the fire? I decided to come up with some guidelines for how to contribute to the conversation without participating in it. Check ‘em out:
1) Resist the urge to comment on the video page itself, or watch it repeatedly to “analyze” the content. These show up as pageviews and comments numbers, which reinforce the effectiveness of the ad.
2) When blogging about the latest controversy, link to other blog posts or news articles about the video, rather than embedding the video in your post and driving more traffic towards it. Rather than posting images or screenshots of the video, post positive alternatives (or pictures of kittens! tag them with “nude yoga” and confuse the several thousand people who search that term daily). I learned the hard way that a powerful image can actually detract from the conversation at hand. Continue Reading
Fake Time Magazine cover image by YogaDawg. Original image taken by J.T. Liss, via yogadork.com
I remember being a teenager. It sucked. I was moody, unpredictable and lacking confidence. As a nonathletic teen, I was also completely disconnected from my body and very sedentary, which probably contributed to my mood swings and emotional malaise.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I could have really used some yoga. Kids and teens these days experience even more stress and pressure than my generation did – and this is why the work that Shanti Generation is doing is so important. On their new DVD, Shanti Generation: Yoga Skills for Youth Peacemakers, they offer a yoga practice especially for tweens and teens, to help them build confidence, strength and mindfulness.
Shanti Generation is a LA-based project “committed to cultivating a generation of peacemakers through leadership training in yoga, compassionate communication, peer-teaching and conscious social action. SGF provides young people access to empowering educational opportunities for learning critical skills to become social change agents.” The project offers classes for youth in the Los Angeles area, leadership and peacemaking training for youth, and facilitator training for qualified yoga teachers. Continue Reading
Stuff, stuff, stuff! Do we really need more stuff? Do we need to give more stuff?
This holiday season, give the gift of yoga by supporting the Acorn Fund. The Toronto-based fund offers annual grants to local organizations who help share yoga with those who would otherwise be unable to access the practice. It was formed with the intention of stimulating the Toronto yoga community’s interest in sharing resources for philanthropic concerns.
The Acorn Fund, which is coordinated by the good people at Yoga Community Toronto, also “places priority on supporting projects that seek to demystify, legitimize, and naturalize yogic practice and thought in the public sphere.” This includes community health, rehabilitation, employment and transition services, and public education, among other services. Past recipients of Acorn Fund grants include the New Leaf Yoga Foundation and the Centre of Gravity Peacemakers.
Donate to the Acorn Fund here.
And do you want to give the gift that keeps giving? Consider using the Acorn Fund as a model for engaged yoga philanthropy in your own community!
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