By Renee Boskaljon | Project manager Yoga
The number of students attending our yoga classes for refugee women in OpenSpace is growing quickly and every day new women sign in.
For this reason we were very grateful for the much-needed help of Sophie and Marci. Two Californian yoga teachers who have been teaching yoga twice a week to our students for the past three weeks (underneath you can read their experience). Due to their efforts we have been able to provide yoga classes at least 5 times per week. Our students expressed their gratefulness for practicing yoga on a daily basis, and with so much personal attention from their teachers. As yoga proves to be so crucial promoting the mental health and well-being for these women, we will continue providing yoga lessons on a daily basis. Though our budget for bus tickets is running out quickly. Each bus ticket costs us 1.60, this means that a donation of 80 euros can already help us to provide bus tickets to 50 women for one week.
Marci and Sophie: "We were deeply moved to read accounts and see photos of refugees arriving on crowded boats and about the drowning that occur. We are mostly retired women who want to do what we can to help out in this crisis. We came to Lesvos under the auspices of REAL (Refugee Education and Learning International), a San Francisco Bay Area NGO that sends volunteers to Lesvos to teach English, Math and other subjects to refugee youth. As Yoga teachers we know first-hand the many benefits of the practice. Yoga has been called the universal language....the union of mind, body and spirit. We wanted to share this timeless practice with refugee women who are experiencing extreme hardship. In the classes we’ve taught in collaboration with Starfish at Open Space we have joined in their laughter, joy of movement, and their experience of deep relaxation. It is an honour and a privilege to work with these wonderful open-hearted women."
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