ken atchity door to door: Yoga Gives Back

Yoga Gives Back - October Newsletter

October 2011

For the cost of one yoga class, you can change a life.

"Thank You Mother India" Special E Letter

SUCCESS STORY: First Global Event Raised $ 27,505.16!!!

We did it!!! This unprecedented global fundraiser brought together over 50 yoga studios in 11 countries with 750 participants for one great cause. Thanks to the overwhelming support, this international event raised $ 27,505.16 to date, surpassing our goal of $20,000. Your contributions will significantly aid in our campaign to secure the second year of "Sister Aid" direct funding to 56 women and children in India, as well as increasing the number of our fund recipients. We will update you as soon as our local NGO partners; NISHTHA in West Bengal and Deenabandhu in Karnataka, identify our new fund recipients. This global collaboration has been so encouraging and inspiring for us not only because of the amount of money raised, but more importantly because it has proven that a global yoga community can come together for one mission; to make a difference and give back to India together. Below are some heartfelt "testimonials" from our global supporters.

Check TYMI website for the list of all participants and updates for 2012 event!! If you could not support TYMI event, but would like to contribute, please use our Pay Pal Donation.

Please send your suggestions for TYMI in 2012 to info@yogagivesback.org.

Our thanks to the following sponsors and studios!

Platinum ($2500 +): David Hong, Wei Wong & Friends in Hong Kong, Omkar108 Yoga LA

Gold ($1000+): Khalid Faiz Muhamed, The Yoga Shala Singapore, Pure Yoga Hong Kong, Yoga Mala Hong Kong, Chet Jewan & Soul Body Yoga Moorpark-LA, Yoga Flex Charlotte, The Yoga Place LA

Silver ($ 500+): Tri Yoga Chelsea-London, Mark Robberds Tokyo, Chaz Russ@Lululemon Calabasas-LA, Yoga Happy Norwich-UK, Black Dog Yoga Sherman Oaks-LA, MahaMondo.com, Mission Street Yoga Pasadena-LA, Steven Woodruff Family LA, Yogayama Stockholm-Sweden

Sponsors: Yoga Magazine, National Yoga Month, Zobha, Manduka, yogitoes, C pur, bijubee, ekaDasa, Sokenbicha, , Jala Clothing, Capital Brands, Le Pain Quotidien, The Conservatory Coffee, Core Power Yoga, Yoga Earth

Global Calendar 2012 "Thank You Mother India"

YGB is creating our first global calendar to celebrate this successful global campaign. This calendar will be distributed to all the participating yoga studios and sponsors worldwide. To become an advertising sponsor for this special calendar, please contact us immediately at info@yogagivesback.org. Space is very limited.

Testimonials from our global supporters!!

Laruga Glaser, Yogayama, Stockholm, Sweden
"We had a great group of people for the class. This type of thing is still quite new to Sweden, however with that being said, there is interest and we have hopes that it will grow with future events!"

Luna Delgado Dold, Dharma Yoga, Chicago
"We had a wonderful time and a great turnout for our little space! We raised 320 dollars!!! I was so proud of the students who came and brought their friends. I truly believe that this was such a great way to promote yoga and offer thanks to India through these women. I cannot wait to see how this project impacts their lives! I really look forward to following up with you and also planning for next year's events!!! "

Mark Robberds, Tokyo, Japan
"For me it was special to note that despite the recent tragedies in Japan early this year, and all the help that is needed in Japan itself, the yoga students here showed their generosity of spirit and big hearts to come and give to those in need elsewhere."

Caroline Wilson, Karmic Living, Hertfordshire, UK
"A big thank you to all my yoga friends and their friends that helped raise £141.50 at today's charity yoga class for Yoga Gives Back. Today we've helped up to 9 women in India to start their own businesses with microfinancing and it felt fabulous. Thank you YGB for coming up with this lovely idea - perfect for a Sunday morning!"

Shari Bourque Goldstein YogaFlex, Charlotte, NC
"We thank you for bringing your beautiful organization to our studio! We had one of the most amazing classes taught by Mara Healy this morning in your honor - with live drumming and yoga energy over-filling the room."

Wendy Wyvill, Pure Yoga, Hong Kong
"Our YGB Karma class was a great success! We raised over 11000$ HK $. Our class was taught by five amazing Pure Yoga teachers. We blended all our teaching together. I think this brought a unique feel to the class. I am very stoked to do another class next year and again co-teach with my other dear Pure teachers."

Maria Merrill, Yoga Ananda, Houston, TX
"We had a small class but the energy and intention for this great cause was HUGE!"

Welcome New Ambassadors!!

YGB is thrilled to have Claudia Fucigna, Denise Woods, Joan Hyman, and Sarah Ezrin from Los Angeles, and Julee Yew-Crijns from UK to join us. Check this growing powerful team and their messages at: http://www.yogagivesback.org/ambassadors.php

Upcoming Events

"Donation Class Relay" happening in new cities!!!

Sukha Yoga, Eco Lake, Singapore
"Yoga in Nature" Botanical Garden

Sunday Oct. 9th, 5-8pm

Living Yoga Studio, New Hampshire

Sunday Oct, 30th, 9-10:30am; Beth-Aime Labonte's special charity class

The Class, Kensington, London
at Whole Food Market

Mondays from Oct. 3rd, 6:30-8pm; Yoga Magazine hosts this special charity class every Monday taught by Heather Lee from Y&W

Press!

"An Important Place in India: Yoga off the Mat" (Wholeliving daily) Great blog by YGB Ambassador Sophie Herbert, who is making her annual visit to Deenbandhu Trust Home in Karnataka, India. YGB now funds 2 mothers and 6 children at this home.

Thank you for your support, which is making a difference one event at a time!!

IN THIS ISSUE

SUCCESS STORY
Global Fundraiser
"Thank You Mother India"

SPECIAL THANKS

GLOBAL CALENDAR

TESTIMONIALS

NEW AMBASSADORS

UPCOMING EVENTS

PRESS

FOLLOW

Follow Yoga Gives Back on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube!

JOIN

DONATION

Your donation helps Yoga Gives Back's campaign to alleviate poverty in India. To make a donation, click the link below.

Yoga Gives Back is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization.

Questions, comments, want to get involved?
Email info@yogagivesback.org.

www.yogagivesback.org

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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.