Author: Minna

Community Yoga Teacher Training, Liverpool, 2023-24

Published by Minna

The aim of this training is to transmit, over a one year period, principles and practices of traditional yoga in order to become an effective community yoga teacher. Participants will develop their own yoga practice and learn how to safely share this experiential knowledge with friends, family and the communities they serve. Participants will acquire a solid foundation of the ancient yoga tradition and yoga philosophy. Changes will be observed on the physical, mental, emotional and energetic levels. Breathing techniques, meditation, chanting and relaxation practices will be developed throughout the training as vital for creating peace and wellbeing. Topics covered: Classical yoga postures, breathing techniques, cleansing techniques, relaxation practices (shavasana, yoga nidra) and meditation techniques Trauma-informed yoga Yogic lifestyle Yoga teaching practice Who is it for? Refugees and asylum seekers wishing to share yoga and its mental health benefits with friends, family and the broader community Yoga practitioners wishing to work with refugees or other vulnerable communities that would benefit from acquiring yoga skills for wellbeing Anyone passionate about taking yoga to refugees or other

Street Youth Yoga in Sierra Leone

Published by Minna

From the Community, For the Community The YAMA (Yoga and Music Arts) Project was founded by ex-street youth wanting to give back to people living rough on the streets of Freetown. Each founding member, Badardee, Francess, Meeky and Sulcus, has their own personal experience of how precarious life in Sierra Leone can be for a homeless person. Inspired by their first-hand experience of the many benefits that yoga, music and poetry writing can bring, they are committed to sharing these practice with others. With support from Tools for Inner Peace, they began giving yoga sessions to street youth in January 2022 and interest in these classes has been growing ever since. The group has grown from 23 to 50-60 people meeting for yoga every Saturday. The sessions are reaching some of the most marginalised and vulnerable members of society, including street workers and gang members. YAMA facilitators understand the value of these activities as tools that help support trauma recovery and manage life’s daily struggles (economic hardship, food insecurity, abuse, addiction…) The facilitators have noted

“Sow seeds of love wherever you go”

Published by Minna

– Quote by Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati These are some personal reflections by Mantramala (Minna Jarvenpaa) on the Yoga Pura Vida teacher training that Tools for Inner Peace supported in Sierra Leone: The week before our departure from Sierra Leone was full of emotion: grief, joy, memory of old hurts, love. Over the course of the first eleven days of the training, participants had been finding their way into all the aspects of yoga, opening up, releasing tension, going deeper. Old memories were starting to come up, both tender and sad. On Day 12, we started teaching Yoga for Children and discovered that many of the participants had been orphans, street children or refugees from the civil war; some had survived sexual abuse or abandonment. Others had been pulled out of school and made to work in the streets by relatives. Several had never had the safety or care to really be children. All carried within them the inter-generational trauma of slavery on which Sierra Leone was built. Now we were asking these same people –

What the Research Says: a study of our Yoga for Peace project

Published by Minna

Mind, body and community: The potential for yoga as mental health and psychosocial support in emergency contexts Jessica Stone Lebanon is home to approximately 1.5 million refugees, numbering roughly a quarter of the entire population—the highest proportion in the world. Many Syrian refugees in Lebanon have witnessed or experienced physical, psychological or sexual violence, and continue to experience food insecurity, discrimination and social isolation. Reports of traumatic flashbacks, uncontrollable emotions, hopelessness, despair, and unusual physical and mental exhaustion are also common, as are high rates of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (1). Women in particular are increasingly exposed to sexual assault, interpersonal violence and survival sex work in the settlements (2), yet there are few mental health services available for Syrians in Lebanon (3), and even fewer that cater to women’s needs. To address these challenges, the organisation Tools for Inner Peace has been implementing a yoga program for mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in informal tented settlements and community centres in the Beqaa Valley region since 2017. This program supports women to

Yoga with Impact podcast

Published by Minna

In a podcast with Danielle Begg, founder of The Yoga Impact Charity, Mantramala (Minna Jarvenpaa) tells a bit of her own story and how Tools for Inner Peace was born. They also talk about how yoga touches people from diverse backgrounds, how Tools for Inner Peace navigates cultural and religious boundaries, and share ideas about making change in the world. Click here to listen to the podcast. Yoga With Impact is a podcast interviewing experts sharing yoga and healing practices in diverse communities.

Triple the Impact

Published by Minna

Help Spread Yoga to Lebanon’s Disadvantaged Communities Tools for Inner Peace has reached a milestone in Lebanon. We have gone from one roving yoga teacher with a translator to a team that includes three Arabic speaking trainers. Our amazing trainers – Zena, Sandy and Cara – are now seeking support to put three more aspiring yogis from the younger generation firmly onto the transformative path of yoga and community service. The plan is to offer three scholarships for a year-long training with three residential immersions at the Satyananda Yoga Academy in Europe. In return, scholarship recipients commit to offering their time and skills to communities in need inside Lebanon. The minimum requirement is two hours of weekly service throughout the year during which the scholarship is being offered. This initiative comes at a time when people all around Lebanon are coming together across sectarian lines, with an awareness of the needs of disadvantaged communities: “Today, the entire nation is gearing up for change. Everyone is called upon to define their role and do their part. As yoga teachers

Like brothers and sisters

Published by Minna

Meet Lynn Mooney (Lalitatirtha). She is our energetic Tools for Inner Peace teacher who has launched four new refugee yoga classes across Liverpool since summer 2018. “My immersion in yoga and spiritual life began in 2010 when I went to live for two years at the Anahata ashram in New Zealand. The emphasis there was on serving others. We ourselves had warm comfortable beds, nourishing food and daily yogic practices. Even the hard mental struggles I went through in the ashram had a beauty to them; they allowed me to grow a little more and to release and let go. The holistic lifestyle of the ashram turned my life around completely. I wanted to offer the experience of yoga practices to others, so in 2015 I began my training to teach yoga at the Mandala ashram in Wales. “I believe that every human being’s needs should be met. We all need love, security, food and a warm bed. We are not separate from one another, although it can feel that way with isolation and loneliness rapidly growing

Yoga for Kids in Crisis

Published by Minna

Training held in Bekaa valley, Lebanon RYE UK and Tools for Inner Peace 23-25 October 2017 & 4-6 April 2018 Children in crisis All children arrive in the world untainted and open. They are sensitive to every influence, behaviour and emotion around them. This can be seen in their often uncanny ability to sense the unknown, their natural responsiveness to the feelings of people around them, and their sponge-like ability to absorb language and information. There is a spark of the divine in children that needs nurturing. A good home environment and contact with positive people, ideas and experiences gives them a good start in life. The flip-side of children’s openness is that their sensitivity also makes them vulnerable. Even in families living in physical safety and material comfort, children can become lost. Parents who lack self-awareness pass on to their children their own expectations, frustrated ambitions, anxieties and dissipation. At the extreme, living in harsh circumstances where the grown-ups are frightened, themselves broken by material hardship, or undergoing intense emotional and mental suffering can

Refugee Yoga in the UK

Published by Minna

“I can safely say if it wasn’t for those classes during last winter I would be sure to be a mental patient by now. Your efforts are greatly appreciated, hope that many others can benefit as much as I did. When God cannot come he sends help.” – Participant feedback, Liverpool, 2021 We are delighted to be back to face-to-face teaching. While we continued offering refugee yoga classes throughout the Covid-19 lockdowns of the last year and a half, we have been painfully aware that our ability to reach the people who most need yoga for their mental health and wellbeing has been curtailed. This has been due both to lack of devices and data, as well as an intangible something that gets lost over a zoom call. Face-to-face classes have restarted in Liverpool, and we hope to launch new classes soon in Northumberland and London. Do you know of a refugee or asylum seeker group in the UK that would benefit from simple, gentle yoga classes to promote their mental and emotional wellbeing? We

Yoga for Peace in Lebanon

Published by Minna

“Peace begins with a smile” In an unprecedented and intensifying flood, 60 million people around the world have become refugees, often escaping war in places like Afghanistan Sudan, Syrian and now Myanmar. Of these as many as 50% suffer from trauma and mental health problems. To respond to this need, Tools for Inner Peace has focused on offering free refugee yoga classes. Our first classes for refugees were launched in London in 2016; from the beginning of 2017 we decided to take this work to Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Yoga is a simple, cheap and effective means of trauma recovery. It soothes the nervous system; relaxes the body and mind; and brings peace and inner clarity. Those we work with – whether in London or in Lebanon – are finding solace in yoga. Their open smiles at the end of each class testify to the benefits. Here is how a refugee from Afghanistan described her experience of this summer’s Restorative Retreat for refugee women: To expand this work and make yoga accessible to refugees everywhere,