ken atchity door to door: Interview with Social Entrepreneur Kayoko Mitsumatsu, founder of Yoga Gives Back

Interview with Social Entrepreneur Kayoko Mitsumatsu, founder of Yoga Gives Back

Inspired by Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Dr Muhammad Yunus, Kayoko founded Yoga Gives Back in 2007. Being a dedicated yoga practitioner, she realized that for the cost of a yoga class an impoverished woman in India can start a business and a child can go to school. Seeing that yoga has its roots in India and as yoga practitioners we have so much to thank Mother India for, Kayoko wanted to give back. Please read this inspirational interview and be encouraged to help make a difference.

What does yoga mean to you and what has it brought you?

I entered into my first yoga class at the gym, as another type of physical exercise after years of volleyball, tennis, Tae Kwon Do, etc.

What shocked me soon was that physical aspect (asana) is just a small part of yoga. I was so interested in learning what Yoga is, which took me to study Indian philosophy and Sanskrit.

As my asana practice became almost daily routine, I also could feel that my mind was opening up with tremendous energy to serve others.

I started to say to myself, “what can I do with my healthy body and mind???”
Yoga has taught me very important lesson about life so far; your body is the temple which you can continue to work on and use it as a vehicle to better this world.

I came to realize firmly that “first part of your life is to cultivate yourself, and second half of your life is to give and serve for the others”.

When and where did you get the idea to start YGB?

I am a documentary film maker as profession, and I was working on a project about Social Entrepreneurs in 2007. I studied about Dr. Muhammad Yunus’ revolutionary micro financing and its impact and potential to alleviate poverty. I learned that with 25 dollars a month, a poor woman can start her own business in India. While getting healthier and spiritually enriched with Yoga, I realized “for the cost of one or two yoga classes, we can change a life who needs our support in India, as a way to give back!”. It started from our yoga class, studio, local community and now it has grown to be a global campaign with volunteers in many US cities and the world, UK, Netherlands, Brazil, Hong Kong, Canada, Sweden, and it just keeps growing with so many yoga practitioners with interest in supporting our mission.

Your organization is rapidly growing, what is the success behind this?

People who have practiced yoga for some time definitely get YGB’s mission! They want to give back to India as Yoga has given so much to their lives, just as I did as a yoga student.
I also think our mantra “for the cost of one yoga class, you can change a life” is a crisp clear platform to anybody. You do not have to be a millionaire or do anything special, but donate one class fee and you are already contributing for a positive change in India. I also think Yoga community generally has strong cultural foundation with passion to contribute to positive social change. After all, that is the one of the purposes of Yoga—to realize that we are all one. Taking care of yourself is the first step for the next big mission. I have been very inspired and encouraged to know that there are so many people who are interested in supporting YGB’s mission to make a difference together. YGB seems to be providing an unique opportunity for many global yogis who have desire to give back to India, but have not had any means to do so.

YGB is founded through the principles of Dr Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank which is currently undergoing hard times enforced by the government of Bangladesh.
What is your opinion regarding this matter and how can we as a community of like minded individuals help support the Grameen bank and it’s founder?

This has been very upsetting, as this political action affects the poor women severely denying their hard work, pride and self-worth. Microfinancing has not only given money to the poor women but very importantly dignity as a capable human being. What Dr Yunus started with 40 women in the 70’s now has grown to serve 8.4 million poor villagers in Bangladesh. In addition, 97% of the Grameen Bank is now owned by poor women who have used micro loans, repaid, saved over the years, and build the foundation for the Bank’s operation. This is truly an inspiring model from a small poor nation. I do not know how to stop politically motivated Bangladesh Government’s attacks on Dr Yunus and Grameen Bank. We can continue to voice our opposition against them, as well as continuing to support the healthy practice of micro financing in the world in a way we can.

You also visit the women who have received loans. From all the women your organization has helped, is there a particular story that has stayed with you?

Jayashree is a poor woman in Bangalore, whom I have been visiting and filming since 2008. When I first met her she just got her first loan of 125 dollars from a local Grameen Koota micro financing institute. Coming from a very poor family, this was the only chance she had to give her two sons good education. She bought her husband’s rickshaw first, then sawing machine, repaying her loans fully every year. In 2010, she managed to send her elder son to Medical Dental College, which has been Jayashree’ s dream and also her family’s. Today, YGB is funding this son’s education fully and committed to support him till he graduates from the college.

All the poor mothers we support in West Bengal and Karnataka states want their children to get better education than them so that they can have better opportunities in the future. We now directly fund 103 mothers and children with micro financing and education funds and we are committed to provide funds for 5 years to each person to bring a real positive change in their lives.

What do you hope to accomplish with YGB and what is needed to reach this accomplishment?

I would like to see more and more yoga communities in the world to join us, especially for our annual global event “Thank You Mother India”. For our second global day this September, over 100 events in 14 countries are happening. We want to see this global event to grow bigger every year. If we continue to grow at the current pace, we could reach to support nearly 1000 mothers and children in India in five years. I am always seeking funding for YGB’s growing operation so that we can continue to have a healthy growth as a sustainable non profit organization, continuing to make a difference in India. Personally, I will continue to film our fund recipients and make short films to share with our global community online. In a few more years, I hope to make a film to clearly show how your contribution has truly made a difference in a mother’s or child’s life!!!

Do you have anything to share with our readers?

Join us this September by hosting a donation class or event at “Thank You Mother India”.
Register at www.yogagivesback.org/tymi.

If you want to donate or volunteer, please write to info@yogagivesback.org
You can also check our Causes page on YGB.

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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.