Making an Impact With Yoga in Developing Nations

Yoga has gained a lot of popularity in the past two decades, with especially the West embracing yogic practices to keep healthy and live a more conscious life. Although hashtag downward facing dog is the trendiest word in relation to yoga on social media, yoga remains confined to its physical practice and sometimes, other aspects of yoga are overlooked. Meanwhile it is heartwarming to see the West adopting yoga as their own, yoga hasn't gained as much popularity in India as we would want to see.

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In the past, yoga was mostly reserved for a certain religious class or the 'sanyasi' who had renounced the traditional way of life and lived as hermits. Regular people considered yoga as something esoteric and that only the enlightened sages could practice. This sentiment doesn't hold as true in the present world. However, there is an additional factor to why yoga is not as accessible in countries like India today, which is the class factor. Yoga is now a privilege mainly reserved for the rich who can afford expensive studio memberships, designer yogawear and organic food. Anything less trendy or aesthetically unappealing does not catch the attention of people. There is a lack of yoga instructors in communities that are less well-off and not much incentive to make yoga accessible to such communities due to reasons such as inadequate infrastructure, inaccess to sanitation and no funding in this area.

The government of India has taken necessary steps to tackle this problem and introduced programs such as mandatory yoga trainings at goverment ayurvedic hospitals, holding annual yoga workshops and the declaration of International Yoga Day. Despite such efforts, it seems that yoga isn't being spread as rapidly among working class communities as it was intended. This is where initiatives like ours and many others have started to gain traction in India. There are a few initial steps our organisation has decided to take in order to accelerate these efforts to popularise yoga in local communities.

Training Yoga Instructors as Part of the NGO

As a part of our mission to spread yoga in local communities, we have conducted a number of yoga workshops in public places such as government schools that the students participate in. Based on the high receptivity of our programs on an average, a follow up classes in those schools is something our NGO is considering. A tangible and efficient way of doing this will be through training a set number of people who are also from working class backgrounds and can do regular school visits to ensure consistency. This accomplishes the mission of spreading yoga and also creates new ways of employment such as through the training program.

NGO's Role in Providing Resources

Once the workshops are conducted on a regular basis in schools, the NGO intends to provide some relevant resources such as yoga mats, food items, a booklet of yoga asanas, pranayama practices and meditations and miscellaneous. This will create a motivating environment for the students to continue practising and also give them ideas to practice yoga sequences on their own. Yoga mats give a feeling of personalisation and prove a good incentive to practice. Food items such as fruit, nuts and water bottles will be provided to the students so they can incorporate these in their lunch hours.

Collaborating With Ayurvedic practitioners

We intend to provide an additional talk on healthy ways of living according to the ancient Indian science of Ayurveda. By working together with Ayurvedic practitioners, students will learn about health and lifestyle through a holistic lens. The practitioner will talk about diet, eating according to seasons and the steps that students can take in everyday life to ensure healthy living.

As we work towards implementing these steps and building holistic health in local communities, our long-term goal and passion to bring yoga to the common people of India will remain unwavered.