ken atchity door to door

Happy New Year!!

"No matter how much or little money you have flowing through your life, when you direct that flow with soulful purpose, you feel wealthy. You feel vibrant and alive when you use your money in a way that represents you, not just as a response to the market economy, but also as an expression of who you are. When you let your money move to things you care about, your life lights up. That's really what money is for." --- Lynne Twist "The Soul of Money"

Your Donation's Impact

Thanks to your generous support, YGB continues to grow at about 35% per year and was able to achieve these milestones in 2015. With your generous support, we can definitely do more in 2016.

Nearly 300 mothers are supported with micro loans in West Bengal, with 91.18% loans repaid, and 90% average increase in monthly income.

285 daughters of these micro loan recipients receive education funds to stay in elementary and junior schools to avoid early child marriage.

50 destitute girl high school students were funded with SHE (Scholarship for Higher Education) in rural West Bengal as well as 35 teen boy and girl students in Chamarajanagar, Karnataka with five year scholarship for them to achieve college degrees.

Twenty-one orphaned children are fully supported for education and cared life at Deenabandhu Trust Home, Karnataka.

One student graduated from the Dental Medical College and entered a post graduate course to become a dental surgeon in Bangalore.

Read more about these success stories at YGB's Blog.

Popular and Impactful YGB Membership!

Become a proud YGB member!! Starting with $15 a month, you can lift up many lives in India. Just register for an easy monthly recurring payment here. We will send you an original membership certificate, as well as listing you on the YGB membership list.

Honorary Member, YGB Ambassador Kathleen Kastner, Encinitas, California

Watch short YGB FILMS to learn more about YGB programs and true stories of our fund recipients in India!!

Exciting News:

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Just two more weeks to give just ONE class for the most successful Annual Global "Thank You Mother India"!!

Thanks to many events and donations from all over the world since September, our annual global campaign "Thank You Mother India," has raised over $70,000 so far. Thank you, everyone. If you have not taken part yet, this is your chance! Host just one event, donate or become a sponsor before January 31. Register your event here, which will be promoted globally by YGB's social media!! Check out many global events already happening or scheduled.

Welcome New Advisors and Ambassadors!

Advisors

Mallika Chopra,
Founder of Intent and The Chopra Well,
Santa Monica, CA

Suzy Shelton,
Freelance Business Consultant
Santa Monica, CA

Ambassadors Steph

Diane Magnette,
Santa Monica, CA

Dana Blonde,
Calgary, Canada
Yoga Shala Calgary

These new Ambassadors are hosting fundraiser events this month. Thank you. Diane Magnette is hosting Yoga Gives Back/Diane's Birthday Celebration @ Maha Yoga, Brentwood, California. Saturday, January 16th, 5:45pm. To register, please email info@mahayoga.com. Dana Blonde is donating 100% from her five karma classes every Saturday in January @ Yoga Shala Calgary.

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Eat well for A Great Cause!!! YGB Benefit Week by eLOVate Kitchen in Santa Monica, through January 17th!! Just show this flyer or mention Yoga Gives Back at the restaurant when placing order, and eLOVate will donate a portion to YGB and you will receive a famous coconut magic bar with home made ice-cream!!

Thank you for these recent events and upcoming events!!

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January

1st: 108 Hatha Surya Namaskar Charity Challenge @ Spirit Yoga, Osaka, Jpaan YGB Ambassador Haidar Ali hosted this fundraiser event.

2nd: Pay What You Wish Yoga @ Singapore YGB Ambassador Wendy Chan's special series of classes continues.

10th: Timji and Friends New Moon Kirtan @ Ashtanga Yoga Center, Carlsbad, California Tim Miller and Friends lead a special Kirtan session.

10th: YGB Thailand Launch Event @ Orion Retreat Center, Koh Samui YGB Ambassador Anouk Prop and friends host special Sunset event.

12th: Special Fundraiser Class @ Golden Bridge, Santa Monica, CA Gurumukh, Normandie and Onkar teach special 2 hour Kundanlini class with eLOVate refreshments.

16th: Fundraiser Yoga Class @ Pranava Yoga, Strathmore, Canada Owner Becky Stone hosts its first YGB event.

23rd: The Anniversary Fundraiser @ The Life Center Islington, London, UK Oasis of Sound Anne Malone and Soulful Vinyasa teacher Tanja Mickwitz (YGB Ambassador) lead a special session.

March

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March 3-6, San Diego, California: Ashtanga Yoga Confluence YGB is honored to be the beneficiary of the globally renowned event once again, where Ashtanga Yoga Confluence, Inc. donates its proceeds to YGB as well as hosting a YGB Presentation on the 5th 1:30 - 1:45 pm.

Yoga Gives Back Presentation with Founder/President Kayoko Mitsumatsu. This presentation will show the newest exciting short film that documents how the programs implemented by this Los Angeles based non-profit organization are making a difference in many lives in India. This session follows right after Women's Panel Discussion with Diana Christinson, Kathy Cooper, Dena Kingsberg, Leigha Nicole and Mary Taylor moderated by Shelley Washington (lecture/discussion/Q&A)

Thank you for all the past and future events,
which make a real difference one class at a time!!

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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.