ken atchity door to door: Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Alexandria Town Talk newspaper

GARDNER, LA -- All she wanted was to enjoy some downtime after work, but what Regina Womack got was far more than she expected. On the afternoon of May 6, Womack of Alexandria and friend Lisa Alexander of Gardner took their kayaks to Valentine Lake, a small, pristine lake located 15 miles west of Alexandria in the Kisatchie National Forest, to fish and enjoy a little peace and quiet.

"I love the lake," Womack said. "First of all, I don't have any cell service out there. It's not very big (46 acres) and outboard motors are not allowed. It's beautiful there and I just enjoy paddling around the lake in my kayak fishing. I just love going there after work."
An avid angler, she enjoys fishing for bass in the small lake, which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service.

"I fish it a lot and have caught some, but nothing larger than three pounds. More times than not, I will fish it and come home with nothing," Womack said.

All of that would change by day's end. I began fishing around 5:30 that afternoon," Womack said. "We were at the Southwest end of the lake which is the opposite end of the dam. There was a lot of grass and lily pads where we were at and we started seeing a lot of fish moving around in the grass." Fishing with a Daiwa spin cast reel, a Shimano rod, and 20-pound test Seaguar fluorocarbon line, she was throwing her weightless Zoom Mag II plum super plus worm when a large swirl opposite from location caught her attention.

"Around 7:45, I was watching the water for any sign of fish feeding when I saw this very large swirl on the opposite side. I kept my eye on the spot and I saw the swirl again," Womack said. She paddled to the spot and cast her worm. Nothing. I tried again and again "» no luck. Then on her fourth cast, she hit pay dirt. "I must have thrown right across her, because she hit it immediately," Womack said. "I really didn't know what I had because it felt like something other than a fish "» like an alligator. I started yelling at Lisa to come and help me.. I didn't have time to think, just react. I don't know how long I fought her. It was probably only 30 or 40 seconds but it seemed more like an eternity," Womack continued. "I didn't have time to think. I could barely hold onto the rod with all the jerking of my kayak."

The unseen fish instinctively headed for the safety of the grass and became entangled. With a death grip on her rod, Womack managed to get her kayak, a 14-foot Native Manta Ray, over to where the fish was. She looked down into the thick grass and noticed a very large eye ball looking up at her.

"I was a little frightened when I stuck my hands into the water to grab her mouth," Womack said. "It was only then I realize I was looking at this monster bass. It took all my strength to pull the bass out of the grass and over into my lap. And I did it without flipping my kayak. I had both my hands in her mouth and hooked my legs around her to keep her from getting away."

Alexander, who was 100 yards away, heard her friend's frantic call for help and paddled up to her kayak just as Womack lifted the fish out of the water and into her lap. "As I got there I saw Regina haul this big sow out of the water. She was holding on to the bass' mouth with both hands and shaking like an earthquake," Alexander said. After the two friends managed to collect there sences, Alexander tied their two kayaks together and managed to get them to the pier where a man helped the pair put the fish into a large storage big in the front of Womack's kayak. It took them a half hour to get their kayaks loaded and headed back to Alexander's house. On the way, she called her dad, Jack Womack of Olla, and both of her brother-in-laws, but they were skeptical she could have caught such a big fish. "They just didn't believe me," Womack said. "So, I gave up on the phone calls." As soon as they arrived at Alexander's house, they immediately put the fish into an ice chest filled with water. It was barely alive.

Alexander took her old meat scales and calibrated them before weighing the fish. It weighed 16.25 pounds at the time. They immediately called Alexander's father, a retired Wildlife and Fisheries employee, who in turn was able to give them names and numbers of the people they needed to call to get the fish certified. After several unsuccessful attempts to reach anyone, they called T..W. Thompson, Alexandria's Police Commissioner and a good friend. They took it into town and where they were met by 10 people, all of whom were also making phone calls to try and find certified scales. It was almost 10:30 p.m. by the time Womack was able to weigh the fish on the certified scales at the Alexandria's Kroger Signature store. It weighed 15.88 pounds. Unable to do anything more, they placed the fish on ice. The following day Robert Gough, program manager of Booker Fowler Fish Hatchery weighed, measured, and certified Womack's fish. It was 27 inches long; had a 25-inch girth, and weighed a whopping 15.875 pounds, just .095 pounds off the state record. It had already spawned. U.S. Forest Fisheries Program Manager David C. Byrd, who oversees the management of Valentine Lake, believes the bass would not only have shattered the Louisiana state record, but would have wiped out the record in Texas as well. "It lost enough to keep it out of the state record book," Byrd said. "But it is still a nice fish with a great weight. Just imagine though if it hadn't spawned and she caught it and weighed it immediately. I believe her bass could have gone as much as 17.5 to 18 pounds, and that weight would have shattered the record in both states. "As it is, she is going to miss the state record (15.97 pounds) by 1/10th of a pound (.095 ounces)," Byrd said. Greg Wiggins caught the present record out of Caney Lake in February of 1994. Womack has sent off the paperwork on her fish to the Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association, who are the official keepers of the state's records, and is just awaiting word back from them. She has turned her fish over to local taxidermist Harry Vermaelen in Pineville to preserve it.

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Yoga Gives Back

Written by Kayoko Mitsumatsu

From Posture To Power: Microcredit Changes Lives On Both Sides of the Ocean

We can talk about making change. But affecting real change in the world comes from impacting the lives of individuals. It comes from empowering people to be independent and able to make a living on their own while at the same time being fully integrated in our interdependent global community. Sometimes it takes something that seems to be radical to make this change, but these shifts can be deceptively small. They can be even as small (or as large) as the cost of a Los Angeles Yoga class.

How could this be? In the practice of microcredit, lending seemingly small amounts of money to small-scale entrepreneurs allows them to succeed and change their circumstances. This is the fundamental basis of microcredit’s transformative power; it’s a revolutionary concept in finance. This practice shifts the emphasis from financial transactions being focused only about large loans and large scale businesses, which are out of reach of many one-person operations, institutions and organizations – to lending practices that actually make a positive difference in a person’s life. Microcredit practices based on social justice and empowerment operate through a combination of small-scale loans based on trust and community support, with structured repayment plans and programs that encourage savings. In these situations, people actually have the opportunity to solidify long-term change in their lives.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the Yoga Gives Back Team: Joel Bender, Leslie Hendry, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Kayoko Mitsumatsu (left-right)

In 2006, economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the institution he founded, the Grameen Bank, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This award was in recognition of their revolutionary efforts to create this micro-credit model, support sustainable economic practices, and provide an alternative to what were exploitive norms. When a person is caught in a cycle of poverty, they may become trapped in the system, particularly since large banking institutions have historically ignored people without assets or credit histories, who are just starting out and who may not have already proven themselves. Most banks prefer to lend large sums of money that represent a greater profit margin and are set up only for large loans in order to make a profit themselves. And even making it more challenging, people at the bottom of the economic scale worldwide have had to rely on moneylenders charging usurious terms and interest rates to obtain funds to plant the next crop, buy inventory of new equipment, or upgrade a business in any way. Institutions such as the Grameen Bank and their affiliates are offering another approach. It’s one that has significantly impacted millions of people.

As Dr. Yunus described in an exclusive interview with Yoga Gives Back in May, 2009, “We started in 1976, and today within Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, eight million people borrow micro loans, ninety-seven percent of them women.” This represents an enormous potential for change and empowerment that just did not exist on a large scale in this form prior to 1976.

There is a social cycle in economics, and Dr. Yunus explained this: “Poverty is not inside the person. Poverty is forced from outside. Poor people are as capable [a] human being as anybody else. They have the same power and energy, same potential. But they are denied such facilities. They cannot express themselves. Money is one of the most important items missing in their lives. You need a dollar to catch a dollar. You cannot catch a dollar with an empty hand. So, that first dollar, nobody has given to her. So she remains dependent on someone else. She has to be hired, to slave; she has to work to make food available on the table. What we have done, we have put that first dollar into her hands as a banking proposition. Conventional banks never come to the poor people. They go to rich people to make more money. The person who does not have a dollar – she cannot get it. So we did it. We did it in a way that is affordable to her. Because we do not insist on collateral. There is no collateral.”

While that may seem like a radical concept, the Grameen Bank has proven that their success is much more than ideological. Dr Yunus cited statistics for us, “The repayment rate is almost 100%, without collateral or anything. This is the strength of microcredit which is now spread all over the world. There are by now at least 150 million borrowers in the world today. Bu it is still very small comparing to the need. We need more microcredit organizations in the world so that more people can be reached.”

Yoga Gives Back is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization begun in LA, with the goal to provide a way for Western Yoga practitioners to give back to India, the birthplace of Yoga, which has given us so much. We’re heeding Dr. Yunus’ call to reach more people through expanded opportunities for and awareness of microcredit and have targeted India and Indian families, women, and would-be entrepreneurs, who would be otherwise stuck in the cycle of poverty that Dr. Yunus described. Yoga Gives Back supports microfinancing operations in India, through the Grameen Foundation, headquartered in Washington, DC. Donations go directly to Grameen Koota, Bangalore, South India and our YGB awareness campaign focuses on the real stories of how poor women are changing their lives with small loans from Grameen Koota.

Ms. Vinatha M Reddy

Grameen Koota was started by visionary teacher and philanthropist, Ms. Vinatha M Reddy (pictured, above) in 1999, who learned about Nobel Peace Recipient Dr Muhammad Yunus’ microfinancing and immediately began exploring ways of replicating his work in her hometown. In 2000, she started providing small microcredit loans, averaging $25.00 a month, to fifty local women. Today, Grameen Koota’s work is reaching out to over 280,000 women in Bangalore, Mysore and many areas of Karnataka state, in South India, making real impact on these women’s lives as well as on the local economy.

Yoga Gives Back

The Los Angeles-based Yoga Gives Back has a worldwide reach and began out of the inspiration and dedication of my Yoga mentor Joel Bender and me. Our group has suddenly started growing almost daily and our mission is shared by a quickly expanding and loving Yoga community.

When I was growing up in Japan, which is a very middle-class society, I had never experienced or seen any real poverty, especially growing up in Tokyo in 1960s and 1970s, when Japan's post-war economic miracle was taking place. Then, I had a chance to live in Brazil in the late 1970s for two years, where as a teenager, I saw the divide between poverty and wealth, the reality of the real slums, kids on the streets begging every time you stopped the car at the traffic light, all very much like India. Social injustice hit me hard.

Once I started Yoga practice and feeling my life being so enriched by it , I felt a need to use my resources to help others. I was producing a documentary on Social Entrepreneurship and learned about microfinancing. I shared this information with Joel [featured in the teacher profile in this month’s issue of LA YOGA] who had been looking for the way he could give back to India since his first visit there – so we teamed up.

When I think about the growth of Yoga Gives Back thus far, I give a lot of credit to the entrepreneurship and volunteer spirit of Americans, willing to embrace and support a new grass roots campaign like ours.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu, co-founder of Yoga Gives Back, is a documentary filmmaker whose films deal with social justice issues, including First They Killed My Father a memoir of a Cambodia’s Killing Fields’ survivor.

A Life Changing Story of Microcredit: Jayashree

Jayashree

Jayashree lives in the suburbs of Bangalore and is married and the mother of two children. We visited her at her humble dirt floor one room home for the first time in 2007. We were touched by her warm smile and most generous hospitality, serving us hot tea and cookies.

Jayashree was born into a very poor family in Bangalore. When she was a child, her family’s financial situation became so severe that she had to drop out of school and work at a garment factory. She toiled throughout her childhood and after she got married at fifteen, her meager earnings had to support her ailing in-laws. She had two children. Her husband’s rickshaw business was not enough to pay her sons’ education or secure food for the family.

In 2007, Jayashree learned from her neighbors about Grameen Koota’s microcredit program and applied for her first loan. She was granted a first loan of 7,000 rupees ($175), and immediately bought her husband’s auto rickshaw. Owning their own rickshaw business increased their income significantly.

Jayashree was able to pay back her entire loan in one year and became eligible for her second loan in 2008. Having proven her diligence, her second loan amount doubled to 15,000 rupees ($375). This time, she bought a sewing machine and started stitching bags. The family’s earnings have now tripled and she is earning 150 rupees ($3.75) a day. In addition, she opened a small shop next to her house to sell her products which is earning her an additional 100 rupees ($2.50) a day.

She is sending her elder son to a medical school. Her son dreams of becoming a doctor and thanks his mother’s business for providing his education, their own home and daily food.

To participate in a Yoga practice where the proceeds support Yoga Gives Back and directly impact the transformation of not only your own life, but that of someone in India, start your Thanksgiving week at Yogaglo, Sunday, November 22, 10:00 A.M. - 12 noon. Some of the teachers include John Sahakian, Felicia Tomasko, Alexandra Aiken and Ally Hamilton; more to be announced. Yogaglo.com; yogagivesback.com.

For more information on Yoga Gives Back or to host a Yoga Gives Back class at your own studio or location, visit: yogagivesback.org or contact yogagivesback@earthlink.net.