320km Coast to Coast Run for YSR Coaches

The period from May to August has been incredibly difficult for Yoga and Sport with Refugees. As you may know, 2025 is a tough year in general for the non-profit world. Available funds have been reduced by around 30-35% across the whole sector, due in major part to USAID funding cuts.

While YSR was not a recipient of USAID funding, it just means a smaller pie for all the NGOs across the world to slice up.

In response to this uncertainty, we cut budgets across all our projects by 30% from May until the end of August, so we could finish the year in a better financial position.

Donor Impact
30% is a lot, and one of the items we discussed cutting was coach support to help reach our budget goal. However, because of the generous support of donors like YOU who contributed to this fundraiser, we were able to keep our coach support program running on Lesvos, though at a slightly reduced capacity. Under normal circumstances, we spend a bit under €1,000 every month on coach support on Lesvos, and this will be the case again from September 1. The money that you contributed for our 320km Coach to Coast Run this year will allow us to keep supporting our coaches on Lesvos for most of 2025.

Your generosity translates to money directly in the pockets of Diia, our climbing coach, Ahmed, our bodybuilding coach, Safdar, our running coach, and Abdallah, our newest coach, among many others. It means recognition for their efforts, a position of leadership during our sport activities, and opportunities for training and certification. Certifications like volleyball coach training which we provided to many of our coaches this year in partnership with Dutch NGO Let’s Keep the Ball Flying, or yoga teacher training that we’ve provided in previous years. None of this would be possible without your kind donation.

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From everyone here at Yoga and Sport with Refugees, a sincere THANK YOU | EFHARISTO | SHUKRAN | MERCI | GRACIAS | DANKE | GRAZIE!!!!

Regards,
Yoga and Sport with Refugee Team