Our Story
The Yoga Mandala Project was initiated in 2014, during a visit to volunteer with Collateral Repair Project, a community based, grassroots organization supporting urban refugees in Amman, Jordan.
We spent several weeks there, teaching Yoga and dance to women, men and children, and were amazed and encouraged by how quickly people responded to Yoga as a self help tool to manage the stress of their situation as refugees.
Those who attended the classes reported that they felt better physically, emotionally, mentally and noticed improved sleep, more relaxation, less anxiety, more resilience and that health issues began to be alleviated.
People said they found ‘comfort’, a feeling of ‘safety’ and ‘peace’. They were very keen to continue!
We began to see the need to bring more teachers into the project, and to create sustainable programs in cooperation with partner organisations. We began to look at ways to build a program that would best serve the needs of the communities we were working with.
After some stops and starts, we found that it made best sense to work alongside local Yoga teachers, bringing them on board, and offering them training in trauma informed protocol, teaching and practice.
We found that there were many teachers wanting to volunteer, to offer what skills they had to support people in this crisis, but that there was a need for consistency, understanding of trauma, PTSD and effects, and skills that would empower and support teachers going into refugee communities.
We began to offer these training programs to teachers, offering them for free, or on a donation basis, and in return asked that people would make a commitment to offer either some time volunteer teaching, or serving in some other way, such as making a donation, organizing a fundraiser or offering Yoga support to other volunteers.
These trainings have enabled us to establish long-term programs within the refugee communities, and we now have several programs up and running.
A sustainable Mandala was born, and we now have ongoing programs, trainings each year for humanitarians and yoga teachers, and self-care support for humanitarians.
The trainings are supported by donations and are subsidized by the Yoga Mandala Project.