ken atchity door to door: IMPAAKT Interviews Kayoko Mitsumatsu: Empowering Lives Through Yoga

IMPAAKT Interviews Kayoko Mitsumatsu: Empowering Lives Through Yoga

Kayoko Mitsumatsu, a woman of action, decided to turn gratitude into action. Inspired by the transformative power of micro-loans, she envisioned a global movement where yoga practitioners could express their thanks by supporting underserved women and children in India. That’s how Yoga Gives Back (YGB) was born. Let’s dive deep to learn more about her and YGB.

Yoga. This Sanskrit word meaning “union” has transformed millions of lives, bringing strength, flexibility, and inner peace.

But for Kayoko Mitsumatsu, its ripple effects extend far beyond that.

For decades, she thrived in the fast-paced world of documentary filmmaking. But as she delved deeper into her yoga practice, a new calling emerged. She felt a deep sense of gratitude for the benefits yoga brought her, and a powerful urge to give back, especially to the birthplace of yoga – India.

This potential led her to translate the philosophy of yoga into a global movement of giving back. As a result, Yoga Gives Back was born in 2017.

We at IMPAAKT connected with Kayoko to learn more about her journey and how Yoga Gives Back is empowering India’s women and children, creating sustainable lives.

Here are the excerpts from the interview:

What motivated you to transition from a successful career in television to founding Yoga Gives Back?

Seventeen years ago, I started daily yoga practice and felt the strong inner calling to give back for the benefit I was receiving from this ancient tradition of YOGA from India. I was 47, and I felt I had worked enough in documentary filmmaking for three decades and it was not my life mission. During those days, I was making a documentary about micro-financing and learned how $15 can help the poorest person in developing countries. I learned that 6 billion dollars was spent on YOGA per year in the US alone, while 75% of the population in India still lived under the poverty line, earning $2 a day. It was so lopsided. I realized that “for the cost of yoga class in the West, you can change a life in India with microfinancing.” I started sharing an idea of engaging yoga practitioners to give back just one class fee and everyone supported the idea right away, to my surprise. Apparently, many yoga communities were already looking for an opportunity to give back but there was no organized charity in the yoga community that focused on giving back to India to express our gratitude. This was how Yoga Gives Back (YGB) was born from a yoga studio in Los Angeles. Today, this movement of gratitude has now spread to 30 countries worldwide, empowering more than 3000 women and children with micro-loan and education programs annually.

You’ve lived in many places throughout your life. How have these experiences shaped your perspective on the world and your work with Yoga Gives Back?

My first experience outside of Japan was in Australia which left me one of the strongest impressions in my life at the age of 17. Growing up in Japan as a girl, I always wondered why my parents’ expectations were different for my brother and me. As a daughter, I was expected to wash dishes and help with my mother’s household chores, as well as changing schools every time my father’s business required relocation. My brother on the other hand did not have to do the same house chores and he never joined our relocation so he could continue the same elite education since elementary school. This was a fundamental question and frustration in my mind which was never answered properly because I was a girl. When I had an opportunity to live with families in Australia, I was so excited to witness how sons and daughters shared an equal amount of household chores to help parents. This was a life-changing experience for me. My deepest question in life was answered and I was right though nobody admitted it until then. Gender should not dictate who does household chores or who needs the best education. This was a life-changing experience for me because it gave me confidence that my fundamental questions were not irrelevant. Different values exist in other cultures beyond Japan, and this discovery truly enlightened me about the reality of the world that existed beyond Japan’s boundaries. Today, as a leader of a global campaign at Yoga Gives Back, it is one of my biggest responsibilities to work with yoga teachers and communities from around the world as well as partnering with NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in India. My early eye-opening experience in Australia taught me that different cultures exist with different values and customs whether good or bad. This conviction helps me to listen and learn from people from around the world and not to be judgmental about differences but rather appreciate differences and learn from them.

You have been filming real stories for over a decade. Is there a particular story of a Yoga Gives Back recipient that has stayed with you the most? Why?

In 2007, I met Guruprasad, a fifteen-year-old Indian boy in a poor neighbourhood, on the outskirts of bubbly Bangalore, India’s IT capital, during my first trip to India. His mother Jayashree just received micro-loans and shared her dream of giving her sons a good education. She only had elementary education due to her family’s poverty. I started filming this family’s story to follow Jayashree’s life with an economic opportunity with micro-loans to end the vicious cycle of poverty. However, as I returned to visit this family every year, it became evident that Guruprasad’s desire to become a doctor was beyond average. It was his mother’s dream and he also wanted to help his poor family and community that had no medical facilities. Witnessing his determination for his higher education to become a doctor, YGB decided to fund his education until he became a doctor. He continued to beat all odds, entered medical college, and advanced to a master’s degree to become a dental oncological surgeon. I was speechless in 2019 when he told me, “I am a seed. Yoga Gives Back is water. You watered this seed to grow into a tree. Now this tree can shelter thousands of people thanks to Yoga Gives Back’s support.” Coming from such a humble background, yet always holding a highly spiritual standard, Guruprasad has taught me so much about dedication to reach his life goals with altruistic motives. His success with higher education also inspired us to create our SHE (Scholarship for Higher Education) which now funds 440 disadvantaged youths with five-year scholarships so they can aim to get college degrees. We are now seeing hundreds of Guruprasad’s prodigies in the world, who are becoming change-makers in the communities.

Running a global organization comes with its own challenges. What has been the most rewarding aspect of Yoga Gives Back for you? On the flip side, what has been the biggest challenge?

The most rewarding aspect of YGB’s work is to be able to connect with yoga practitioners from around the world who believe in our mission of giving back with gratitude. YGB’s work engages the most wonderful human beings, like-minded brothers and sisters, most of whom I only met online or through emails. I am really blessed to have this incredibly powerful global community behind our mission which I never knew we could build when I started YGB. Of course, another equally rewarding aspect is the impact of this global community’s support on India. We are providing life-changing opportunities for thousands of lives in India with whom we became one big family, and we meet every year. The biggest challenge is how to convey our mission in a most sensitive way so that it does not come across as a “white savior.” We are creating a unique movement of gratitude within the global yoga community that ultimately helps transform the lives of thousands of underserved women and children in India, whose lives suffer from tremendous socio-economic hardship and gender gap. To find an authentic balance to express our message without being labelled as colonialism is a very important element of our work as our goal is simply to give back with gratitude to the motherland of yoga.

Your background in documentary filmmaking is impressive. How did your experience filming for NHK inform your approach to filming the Yoga Gives Back stories?

As a documentary filmmaker for 30 years, I have learned a few important lessons. First, to listen to people’s voices without judgement, let them share their truth. Second, observe what is happening in front of my eyes even if it contradicts my presumptions. Last but not least, be responsible for the relationship with individuals beyond filming. This was one of the biggest lessons I learned while working for NHK, national public television. Our goal is to put a program on the air on a certain date and time. After the broadcast, I often felt guilty that all the effort was put in the name of broadcasting and not ultimately to advocate issues or care about somebody’s struggles. I felt guilty as it felt I was exploiting subjects, no matter how genuine my intentions were and how much I believed that sharing a particular story was important public information work as advocacy. Now working for YGB, I feel my work is whole. This is my lifework, and I am putting 100% energy every minute. We are doing all our best to grow this unique movement of giving back with gratitude that has no deadline or schedule. My goal is to grow this work to be eternal.

How can yoga studios and individual yoga instructors get involved with Yoga Gives Back and make a difference?

Any yoga practitioner whether teacher, student or business owner can take part in YGB’s work by hosting one class to raise awareness and funds with their communities, as well as becoming our “Gratitude Circle” monthly donors with as little as $15. This is the first step I want every beneficiary of yoga, 300 million in the world, to take as a way to express gratitude for this tremendous gift we have received. For yoga teachers, we also invite them to become a YGB Global Ambassador to lead this campaign with their communities and get more involved with strategic planning as well. Our 150 Ambassadors are our true superpowers to grow this global campaign. We are blessed to have top teachers around the world, and it keeps growing. Yoga students can also become our volunteers locally to help organize an event or simply reach out to studios and teachers to host a class. The yoga business is estimated to raise $200 billion by 2030. I urge yoga-related business owners to join us to make a difference as corporate sponsors with a fixed contribution annually or donate a portion to YGB. We are always open to discussing any new ideas of collaboration.

Yoga Gives Back has reached 30 countries. What are your hopes for the organization’s future?

I would like to establish YGB’s local chapters in the major US cities as well as more countries such as Canada, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Singapore, UAE, UK. Local chapters can host their own Galas, Retreats and any other events to inspire local communities with gratitude. We have dedicated Ambassadors with incredibly powerful communities who can expand our mission in a manner that suits local needs and appeal, rather than creating cookie-cutter-style events like the ones led by me and YGB team at the Los Angeles headquarters. I envision this approach will seed our mission in the local community that will lead to eternal work of gratitude circulation of giving back.

What advice would you give to someone who is new to yoga and wants to experience the mind-body connection you describe?

First, we must make clear that yoga is not just a physical exercise (asana), which is only a small part of the practice. I learned that yoga’s ultimate goal is to be able to sit in meditation, go inward to calm your mind, and ultimately realize the connection between our small self and divine self. The body is our temple to keep us in good shape so we can serve others, whether our family, friends, neighbours, or pets. After 17 years, I am still practicing yoga daily whether asana or meditation to reach that goal. I think, that to experience mind-body connection, we need to continue our practice diligently with patience, as it is a life-long journey, and nothing happens overnight. If anything, I can now really feel the connection between breathing and mind which might be the first step towards mind-body connection. I am still on my journey!

More about Kayoko Mitsumatsu

Prior to co-founding YGB, Kayoko Mitsumatsu, was a seasoned producer and director. She honed her craft with NHK, Japan’s National Public Broadcaster, where she spearheaded prime-time current affairs and documentary programs. Her global perspective is shaped by her diverse living experiences in Australia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Driven by a profound belief in documentary filmmaking’s power to connect cultures and amplify unheard voices, Kayoko founded YGB Films. For over a decade, she has dedicated herself to capturing the compelling stories of Yoga Gives Back’s fund recipients in India. Her films reveal the stark realities faced by underserved women and children, while also showcasing the transformative impact of Yoga Gives Back’s global community support. Through her lens, she brings to light the resilience and hope that flourish amid adversity, making an indelible mark on countless lives.

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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.