Yoga-based educational programme
Yoga-based educational programme
Author
Introduction
Training to become a yoga teacher is an opportunity not often afforded to people from minoritised groups. It can be prohibitively expensive and the portrayal of yoga in the media is still largely aimed at a particular market. This results in a lack of diversity in yoga teaching populations, which in turn acts as a barrier for people from minoritised and marginalised backgrounds, who may have experienced great trauma, to access wellbeing services.
2022 Award
Lorraine Close (CF 2019) is a yoga teacher and Outreach Director of Edinburgh Community Yoga (ECY), a not-for-profit social enterprise where she runs programmes to support the mental and physical health of people in her local community and reduce their social isolation. Through this work, she has seen that many participants from marginalised communities who have experienced trauma experience a lack of opportunity and equity in accessing wellbeing services and training.
Lorraine has been awarded one of our Activate grants to pilot an Action Scholarship Programme, a yoga-based educational programme for women currently attending ECY. The programme will be aimed at women from marginalised communities with multiple traumas who have expressed an interest in studying yoga, with a view to progressing to teacher training. The grant will enable Lorraine and colleagues at ECY to develop, deliver and evaluate a six-month trauma-informed mentoring programme of yoga-based education. This will focus on the development of life skills, emotional regulation and self-management to encourage healing and personal growth amongst participants. Following this, Lorraine and colleagues at ECY will work with the participants to develop and deliver a fully-funded 12-month trauma-informed yoga teacher training programme. This programme will be the first of its kind in Scotland to be rooted in social justice, health equity and community-based relationships.,
Lorraine hopes that this will contribute to the development of a new generation of trauma-informed yoga teachers from diverse backgrounds, who will be equipped to go on to deliver yoga programmes in their own communities, widening the number of people who can benefit from them.
Lorraine’s Fellowship explored ways to develop sustainable trauma-informed yoga outreach and was supported by the Rank Foundation.
2022 Award
Lorraine Close (CF 2019) is a yoga teacher and Outreach Director of Edinburgh Community Yoga (ECY), a not-for-profit social enterprise where she runs programmes to support the mental and physical health of people in her local community and reduce their social isolation. Through this work, she has seen that many participants from marginalised communities who have experienced trauma experience a lack of opportunity and equity in accessing wellbeing services and training.
Lorraine has been awarded one of our Activate grants to pilot an Action Scholarship Programme, a yoga-based educational programme for women currently attending ECY. The programme will be aimed at women from marginalised communities with multiple traumas who have expressed an interest in studying yoga, with a view to progressing to teacher training. The grant will enable Lorraine and colleagues at ECY to develop, deliver and evaluate a six-month trauma-informed mentoring programme of yoga-based education. This will focus on the development of life skills, emotional regulation and self-management to encourage healing and personal growth amongst participants. Following this, Lorraine and colleagues at ECY will work with the participants to develop and deliver a fully-funded 12-month trauma-informed yoga teacher training programme. This programme will be the first of its kind in Scotland to be rooted in social justice, health equity and community-based relationships.,
Lorraine hopes that this will contribute to the development of a new generation of trauma-informed yoga teachers from diverse backgrounds, who will be equipped to go on to deliver yoga programmes in their own communities, widening the number of people who can benefit from them.
Lorraine’s Fellowship explored ways to develop sustainable trauma-informed yoga outreach and was supported by the Rank Foundation.