The Yoga Access Project describes and formalises our long-running work to make yoga accessible to all people, regardless of country, financial situation, language or education. There is ‘yoga’ everywhere but actually very little effective, safe breath-based practice that is adapted to the individual, non-religious, non-dogmatic, and respectful of all cultural backgrounds.

Our Goals

• Communicate Yoga as being for everyone, not a subculture for any one group of people, so all kinds of people can see it is not an exaggerated gymnastics, but a simple ancient breath technology that can be adapted to anyone;

• Make Yoga education accessible to aspiring Yoga teachers who would otherwise be unable to attend trainings; support them to share within their own underserved communities;

• Provide grants to help Yoga teachers in industrialising nations pay for expenses such as teaching venues, travel, or internet access;

• Provide at least US $100,000 in scholarships for students from historically excluded backgrounds to access yoga education resources (including both online and in-person opportunities);

• Coordinate and fund translation of yoga educational resources into different languages beyond English: goal this year is a parallel website in Spanish, offering resources for South and Central America;

• Offer project-specific grants to yoga projects in Africa on a quarterly basis by application;

• Extend our support for teachers offering yoga in Prisons; work towards this a separate focus area.

Examples of our work

• Full scholarships for indigenous Fijian Yoga teachers, and ongoing mentorship — at least five of whom who are now teaching Yoga in their communities;

• For the last 15 years+, 20%+ of places as scholarships on every training for students with financial difficulties to attend;

• Offering all our online courses by donation during the pandemic, to support people in lockdown;

• Free yoga classes and healthy eating education on Taveuni Island, Fiji;

• Support for local women’s empowerment and health programmes on Taveuni Island, Fiji;

• Scholarships and support for young teachers from Uganda to travel to learn Yoga and then spread it in their local communities, and ongoing support for them during the pandemic;

• Mentorship and support of Yoga in Prisons projects in the Phillipines and Mexico;

• Mentorship of the development of Yoga for Christians projects in the US and Italy.