Yoga is life-giving. Let's make it accessible to all lives! 

• PRISONS
• SCHOOLS
• HOSPITALS
• REHAB CENTERS
• INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

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PRISON YOGA TEACHER TRAININGS

We bring yoga to prisons. Once inside, we train adults in custody to become yoga teachers for other adults in custody. Establishing certified yoga teachers within prisons builds multiple layers of capacity and healing on the inside, from community members on the inside in tandem with community members on the "outside".

“The program has given me more perspective of the brain and neuroscience stuff. It’s been cool looking at the brain developmentally, looking at how people are functioning. That’s taught me a little more compassion, a little more patience.”
​– Shawn, OSCI Teacher Training Graduate ​

Click to learn more about our Yoga in Prisons program.
Click to learn more about the Prison Yoga Dharma Library.

YOGA IN SCHOOLS PROGRAM

The student populations at Bridges Middle School and Thomas A. Edison High School consist of a bright, culturally and socially diverse student body with a large variety of learning differences including ADHD, Tourette’s, dyslexia, and autism spectrum. Yoga helps them to cope with the anxiety and frustration that often accompanies these differences, to improve their sensorimotor skills, and promotes focus, concentration, self-awareness and self-acceptance.

ON PAUSE DUE TO COVID

YOGA IN HOSPITALS

Legacy Emanuel
Many of our students at Legacy Emanuel are living at or below the poverty line. They struggle with multiple chronic health issues that are challenging due to lack of resources including obesity, diabetes, and depression. Many students carry with them trauma histories due to generations of poverty. Yoga helps them to manage their pain, regain strength, and be in community with others who experience similar challenges.

Legacy Good Samaritan
At Legacy Good Samaritan, we offer programs within their Pain Management Clinic. All of our students suffer from chronic pain conditions, including fibromyalgia, lupus, and arthritis. The practice of yoga helps them to interrupt the pain cycle with brain training exercises, mindful movement, breathing practices, and meditation.

“YOGA HELPED ME GET MY STRENGTH BACK AFTER THE OPERATION AND CHEMOTHERAPY.”
“WE ENCOURAGE AND SUPPORT EACH OTHER.”
“I FEEL MUCH BETTER PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY AFTER DOING YOGA CLASS.”
“YOGA HELPED MY ARTHRITIS AND I HAVE LESS PAIN AND GREATER ABILITY TO MOVE MY BODY.”
“WE ALL ARE VERY GLAD THIS HEALTH OPPORTUNITY IS HERE FOR US.”
 “I HAVE HAD TO HAVE TWO KNEES REPLACED AND YOGA HAS HELPED ME IN THE REHABILITATION PROCESS.”
“WE ALL HAVE FOUND IT AMAZING THAT ONE SINGLE HEALTH PRACTICE HAS DONE SO MUCH TO IMPROVE OUR HEALTH OVERALL!”

​ON PAUSE DUE TO COVID

YOGA FOR REHAB + RECOVERY

The community of students at the Volunteers of America Drug + Alcohol Treatment Center has been exploring yoga within their treatment program two mornings a week to learn:

• how to have a new relationship with their body,
• how to navigate the process of drug and alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and
• how to develop life skills that include their physical body, such as:
  • mindfulness of sensations to increase self-awareness,
  • improved capacity for impulse control and "getting comfortable feeling uncomfortable" (less reactivity),
  • portable mind-body interventions for anxiety, such as coordinating breathing, sensing + moving, and
  • interpersonal respect, mutuality, and encouragement, as they all endeavor to learn new things in a physical practice. 

Yoga is more and more integrated into treatment centers asa proven trauma-informed, somatic practice that helps alleviate the symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain.

"For the last year (2018 - present), I have volunteered to teach yoga at VOA.  It has been a really rich, wonderful opportunity to work with women who were growing a lot personally and spiritually.  The yoga students were in the legal system and were mandated to receive drug and alcohol treatment.  Most of them were in the program for approximately 6 weeks and had experienced significant trauma in their lives.  

While in the program, they had the opportunity to practice yoga twice a week with their peers in a safe setting. They generally come into their first yoga class somewhat nervous and apprehensive.  Maybe they had never done yoga before.  Maybe they didn’t think of themselves as “athletic” or in good shape.

Practicing yoga helped them learn about and appreciate their bodies, the body’s connection to the brain, and how to better regulate their nervous system. 
It helped them develop trust in themselves, in interpersonal relationships, and in something larger than themselves.
They also developed mindfulness and other skills that they could take out of the yoga room and carry with them even after leaving the program. 

I find teaching at VOA to be a great opportunity to provide support and nurturance to the women in the program as well as a great place to grow and develop as a yoga teacher.  It gave me the opportunity to teach yoga in a therapeutic way…in a way that best suited the needs of the students. 

​Over the course of the past year, I developed more confidence in the yoga that came through me and its healing effect on the women in this program.  It was very rewarding to see both the growth in each of the women as well as the development that occurred in me." ​

- Christine, one of our VOA teachers:

BENARES ACADEMY OF INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC

Pandit Deobrat Mishra carries on the vision of his mother, founder of this school for nurturing and sustaining the arts of Indian tradition: music and dance.

Together, we bring light into darkness.
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At DAYA Foundation, we understand that when human beings are shunned or isolated, we all suffer.  That which we shun, is that which we shun in ourselves, too.

Priyanka is a child that some people have shunned or ignored. Priyanka was born into poverty and illness and has been living at an orphanage in India since she was 2 years old.

Like you, Priyanka was born with a spark.  A creativity and aliveness that wants to shine and be shared.
The Benares Academy of Indian Classical Music, with the guidance of Pandit Deobrat Mishra, welcomed Priyanka. Left with no education or mentorship, children from the orphanage often must turn to begging or survival sex work. However, Priyanka and other children in need were offered the chance to learn music, thanks in part to support by donors like you.
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Priyanka learned from Deobrat and the Academy over many months. At first timid and hungry, she blossomed as she had the chance to make friends and share meals.  

Will you make a gift today and ensure other children need not go hungry, spiritually or physically? DONATE TODAY!

Because of the support of community, Priyanka began to make eye contact, to smile, to sit closer to the other students. She began to sing more loudly. She shared her meals with younger students, making sure everyone was nourished. Priyanka soon began lessons in dance as well. She startled less often. She practiced her hand and foot mudras constantly. Arriving each morning ready for the next thing she would learn, Priyanka began to bring another child from the orphanage.

Music and dance helped to bring back a joyous curiosity and playfulness. Priyanka made friends and started to build community. Poverty and isolation are overwhelming, and smother the spark of creativity and feeling that connects us to one another.

It takes a compassionate, consistent, and nourishing community to reach toward those in need.

Here at DAYA Foundation, we need your help to support those who are shunned, isolated and marginalized. Will you join us in helping children in need in India?

Together with your support, DAYA Foundation serves those most marginalized and in need of nourishment.  This includes the work of DAYA in its partnership with the Benares Academy of Indian Classical Music and Pandit Deobrat Mishra.

DONATE TODAY

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