Addressing the tragedies of rape and suicide among young girls in West Bengal, India

In the past twelve years, Yoga Gives Back has shared numerous uplifting stories of transformation. Thanks to our growing global yoga community’s support, Yoga Gives Back has helped to empower more than 1,300 underserved women and children with micro-loan programs and education funds.

Yet a disturbing reality continues to create a cloud over India, a cloud so dark it can sometimes create a shadow of helplessness. Since April, I’ve been receiving regular emails about horrendous cases of rape and suicide from Mina Das, Director of Nishtha, our NGO Partner in West Bengal whose mission is to empower women to advocate for equal rights and opportunities.

On April 13, Mina wrote, “Dear Kayoko, We have become deeply depressed to know that one of the teen-aged daughters of Nishtha has brutally been raped; and after the rape, was severely injured by a sharpened blade wielded by a young adult.” As soon as this news went around the village her girlfriends captured the 27-year-old neighbor man at home, tied him to a tree, and waited until the local police arrived. These young girls acted bravely and swiftly due to the power of Nishtha’s social justice workshops in their villages—learning about human rights and how to act to protect them. YGB’s scholarship program supports these workshops, which are just as important as academic classes.

“She is our daughter and we will fight for her justice until the end of the case, keeping our life at stake (against political and social pressure). We have all hope that you all will be by our side until we get proper justice.” Legal service they can afford is always very slow and disappointing, Mina wrote, “How long will we have to tolerate all this beastly atrocity?”

Women Rising up to Raise Awareness

Within a few days of this violent crime, two thousand local village women marched seeking justice for the girl and raising awareness to prevent future incidents. Their actions were covered in the local news.

In the second photo in the newspaper article, a woman carries a poster saying, “You can do everything. Believe it. Don’t think you are weak. You can do everything without the support of others’ – Swami Vivekananda.”

Seeking Shelter

This is not an isolated incident but one that happens far too often. On April 10, a 15-year-old girl sought shelter at Nishtha after she was almost raped by a wage laborer she worked with on a farm. On April 16, a 15-year-old member of Nishtha was taken to another village by her parents for an arranged marriage. With the help of the police, she was rescued on April 18, the day of the proposed marriage. On April 23, a Nishtha Day Care Centre girl committed suicide at home. These are only a few of the stories that demonstrate the importance of this work to empower girls, youth, and women.

Yoga Gives Back Supports Educational Initiatives to Empower Women

As we receive the tremendous gift of yoga in our daily lives that empowers us physically and spiritually, it becomes our duty to take action as we become aware of such injustice. At Nishtha, Mina fights against the trauma these crimes and tragedies cause among adolescent girls, families, and even the social workers. Part of my mission at Yoga Gives Back is to continue to support educational initiatives that focus on social justice and equality, social empowerment and the collective reduction of violence. After over one decade, I feel our work has just begun.

Support Yoga Gives Back

Support the work of Yoga Gives Back and gather in community. at the organization’s annual fundraising Gala event, Sunday, September 29 at 5pm at Glo. Learn more and register at: yogagivesback.org/annual-gala-fundraiser.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu

Kayoko Mitsumatsu is a documentary filmmaker and avid yoga practitioner. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Yoga Gives Back: yogagivesback.org.

The post Yoga Gives Back: Can Empowering Women Save Lives? appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Yoga Gives Back Ambassadors Visit India

Visiting India to see change in action.

“Why is there no yoga class that gives back to India?” In 2007, I asked this simple question of yoga teachers, studio owners, and yogi friends. There were many charity yoga classes for HIV patients, cancer survivors, animal rescues, and other worthy causes. But I didn’t see a class that focused on addressing the deep-rooted poverty issues of India, the Motherland of Yoga. This question was at the root of how Yoga Gives Back (YGB) was born.

“For the cost of one yoga class, you can change a life,” quickly became our mantra and continues to inspire yogis around the world to take action and give back. I never imagined that YGB’s mission would eventually reach out to yoga communities in 20 countries worldwide, enabling us to empower nearly 1,300 underserved mothers, youths and children with micro-loans and funds for education.

Worldwide, an estimated 300 million practicing yogis drive an $ 80 billion industry. YGB’s new goal is to engage #OneMillionYogis to take action, regardless of the size of one’s contribution.

Yoga Gives Back Team Visits India

With each visit to India, St Francis’ words, “By giving, you receive,” echo deep in my heart. I have been to India almost every year since YGB’s inception in 2007. Each time, I end my visit overwhelmed with gratitude as I learn more about our fund recipients’ tough lives and their incredible resilience, as well as the dedicated leaders and staff working at our NGO (Nonprofit Non-Governmental Organization) partners in Karnataka and West Bengal.

It has long been my wish to share this precious trip with more people. For the first 10 years, I kept the visiting team small while we were still growing our programs and partnerships. We were going into the homes of micro-loan recipients, hearing personal stories of hardship, and staying in the guest house of an orphanage learning about the tragic backgrounds of these abandoned children. So, as a documentary filmmaker, YGB FILMS became the perfect solution for sharing the truth with our worldwide supporters.

Over the years, YGB has connected me to the global family of compassionate and grateful souls. YGB connects us on a deep level because of the mission. Inspired by this, Julee Yew-Crijns, YGB Ambassador in the UK, proposed the idea of a YGB Seva Trip.

Yoga Gives Back Global Ambassadors Visit India

It was time. In January, 2018, I visited with a team of eight YGB Global Ambassadors and supporters who have been passionately involved in YGB’s programs for many years from all over the world, including Abu Dhabi, London, Los Angeles, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Tokyo. Eight of us convened in Bangalore: Anouk Prop (The Netherlands/Thailand), Beate Scholz (Los Angeles), Bonnie Ikemura (Los Angeles), Julee Yew Crijns (the U.K./Malaysia), Lauren Peterson (Los Angeles), Mina Lee (UAE/Korea), Sharda ten Hove (Bali/The Netherlands), and me.

For the next two weeks, we visited YGB programs in Bangalore, Chamarajanagar, Mysore, and rural Kolkata in West Bengal.

The group of us were from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds with yoga as a uniting force. In India, we shared an unforgettable two weeks learning about the people directly touched by YGB’s programs.

According to Anouk Prop, “During our YGB Seva visit, the girls that received a Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) prepared a deeply touching play for us on the manipulative process of trafficking, the play of power and control, and how girls and women are standing up against this in the villages of West Bengal.”

Lauren Peterson says, “I was impressed by the films made by the students at Deenabandhu that dealt with issues like combating the superstitions that restrict women and girls. It was heart-warming to see how grateful and generous the recipients are. They share what little they have and watch out for each other.”

Yogis Changing Lives

With the growing support for #OneMillionYogis campaign, YGB is empowering these lives in 2018:

• 25 young girls rescued to avoid becoming prostitutes will receive education and live in a group home.
• 30 children who have no families to depend on live in a loving home.
• 261 disadvantaged students received a five-year scholarship for higher education.
• 440 rural impoverished mothers enjoy their income earning work with micro loans.
• 462 rural young girls continue their primary education and avoid child labor or marriage.

When it comes to Yoga Gives Back, Beate Scholz says, “It is astounding to me how much very little money supporting education can change the life of children and how much micro-loans can help women to start their own businesses. We met many of those children and women, and we saw their pride and happiness. We could feel the change YGB donations have made in their lives.”

Sharda ten Hove says, “YGB programs have a huge impact on the future of these women and children. They are all eager to learn and to make something of their lives, something that can inspire us and our children. I would like my community to know that every dollar donated to YGB can help change the lives of this generation as well as future generations as they are all committed to creating better conditions for their villages.”

Support Yoga Gives Back

Join the 2023 Yoga Gives Back Global Campaign.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu

Kayoko Mitsumatsu is a documentary filmmaker and avid yoga practitioner. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Yoga Gives Back: yogagivesback.org.

The post The Impact of Yoga Gives Back appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

From Posture To Power: Microcredit Changes Lives On Both Sides of the Ocean

We can talk about making change. But affecting real change in the world comes from impacting the lives of individuals. It comes from empowering people to be independent and able to make a living on their own while at the same time being fully integrated in our interdependent global community.

Sometimes it takes something that seems to be radical to make this change, but these shifts can be deceptively small. They can be even as small (or as large) as the cost of a Los Angeles Yoga class.

What is Microcredit?

How could this be? In the practice of microcredit, lending seemingly small amounts of money to small-scale entrepreneurs allows them to succeed and change their circumstances. This is the fundamental basis of microcredit’s transformative power; it’s a revolutionary concept in finance. This practice shifts the emphasis from financial transactions being focused only about large loans and large scale businesses, which are out of reach of many one-person operations, institutions and organizations – to lending practices that actually make a positive difference in a person’s life.

Microcredit practices based on social justice and empowerment operate through a combination of small-scale loans based on trust and community support, with structured repayment plans and programs that encourage savings. In these situations, people actually have the opportunity to solidify long-term change in their lives.

Microcredit Initiatives and the Nobel Peace Prize

In 2006, economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the institution he founded, the Grameen Bank, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This award was in recognition of their revolutionary efforts to create this microcredit model, support sustainable economic practices, and provide an alternative to what were exploitive norms. When a person is caught in a cycle of poverty, they may become trapped in the system, particularly since large banking institutions have historically ignored people without assets or credit histories, who are just starting out and who may not have already proven themselves.

A New Approach to Lending

Most banks prefer to lend large sums of money that represent a greater profit margin and are set up only for large loans in order to make a profit themselves. And even making it more challenging, people at the bottom of the economic scale worldwide have had to rely on moneylenders charging usurious terms and interest rates to obtain funds to plant the next crop, buy inventory of new equipment, or upgrade a business in any way. Institutions such as the Grameen Bank and their affiliates are offering another approach. It’s one that has significantly impacted millions of people.

As Dr. Yunus described in an exclusive interview with Yoga Gives Back in May, 2009, “We started in 1976, and today within Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, eight million people borrow micro loans, ninety-seven percent of them women.” This represents an enormous potential for change and empowerment that just did not exist on a large scale in this form prior to 1976.

There is a social cycle in economics, and Dr. Yunus explained this: “Poverty is not inside the person. Poverty is forced from outside. Poor people are as capable [a] human being as anybody else. They have the same power and energy, same potential. But they are denied such facilities. They cannot express themselves. Money is one of the most important items missing in their lives. You need a dollar to catch a dollar. You cannot catch a dollar with an empty hand.”

“So, that first dollar, nobody has given to her. So she remains dependent on someone else. She has to be hired, to slave; she has to work to make food available on the table. What we have done, we have put that first dollar into her hands as a banking proposition. Conventional banks never come to the poor people. They go to rich people to make more money. The person who does not have a dollar – she cannot get it. So we did it. We did it in a way that is affordable to her. Because we do not insist on collateral. There is no collateral.”

The Strength of Microcredit

While that may seem like a radical concept, the Grameen Bank has proven that their success is much more than ideological. Dr Yunus cited statistics for us, “The repayment rate is almost 100%, without collateral or anything. This is the strength of microcredit which is now spread all over the world. There are by now at least 150 million borrowers in the world today. Bu it is still very small comparing to the need. We need more microcredit organizations in the world so that more people can be reached.”

Yoga Gives Back and Microcredit

Yoga Gives Back is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization begun in LA, with the goal to provide a way for Western Yoga practitioners to give back to India, the birthplace of Yoga, which has given us so much. We’re heeding Dr. Yunus’ call to reach more people through expanded opportunities for and awareness of microcredit and have targeted India and Indian families, women, and would-be entrepreneurs, who would be otherwise stuck in the cycle of poverty that Dr. Yunus described. Yoga Gives Back supports microfinancing operations in India, through the Grameen Foundation, headquartered in Washington, DC. Donations go directly to Grameen Koota, Bangalore, South India and our YGB awareness campaign focuses on the real stories of how poor women are changing their lives with small loans from Grameen Koota.

Grameen Koota was started by visionary teacher and philanthropist, Ms. Vinatha M Reddy in 1999, who learned about Nobel Peace Recipient Dr Muhammad Yunus’ microfinancing and immediately began exploring ways of replicating his work in her hometown. In 2000, she started providing small microcredit loans, averaging $25.00 a month, to fifty local women. Today, Grameen Koota’s work is reaching out to over 280,000 women in Bangalore, Mysore and many areas of Karnataka state, in South India, making real impact on these women’s lives as well as on the local economy.

The Inspiration for Yoga Gives Back

The Los Angeles-based Yoga Gives Back has a worldwide reach. It began out of the inspiration and dedication of my Yoga mentor Joel Bender and me. Our group started growing daily and our mission is shared by a expanding and loving Yoga community.

When I was growing up in Japan, which is a very middle-class society, I had never experienced or seen any real poverty. Especially growing up in Tokyo in 1960s and 1970s, when Japan’s post-war economic miracle was taking place. Then, I had a chance to live in Brazil in the late 1970s for two years. As a teenager, I saw the divide between poverty and wealth. I saw the reality of the real slums, kids on the streets begging every time you stopped the car at the traffic light, all very much like India. Social injustice hit me hard.

A Belief in Social Entrepreneurship

Once I started Yoga practice and feeling my life being so enriched by it, I felt a need to use my resources to help others. I was producing a documentary on Social Entrepreneurship and learned about microfinancing. I shared this information with Joel  who had been looking for the way he could give back to India since his first visit there. We teamed up.

When I think about the growth of Yoga Gives Back thus far, I give a lot of credit to the entrepreneurship and volunteer spirit of Americans, who willing to embrace and support a new grassroots campaign like ours.

A Life Changing Story of Microcredit: Jayashree

Jayashree lives in the suburbs of Bangalore and is married and the mother of two children. We visited her at her humble dirt floor one room home for the first time in 2007. We were touched by her warm smile and most generous hospitality, serving us hot tea and cookies.

Jayashree was born into a very poor family in Bangalore. When she was a child, her family’s financial situation became so severe that she had to drop out of school and work at a garment factory. She toiled throughout her childhood and after she got married at fifteen, her meager earnings had to support her ailing in-laws. She had two children. Her husband’s rickshaw business was not enough to pay her sons’ education or secure food for the family.

Jayashree the Entrepreneur

In 2007, Jayashree learned from her neighbors about Grameen Koota’s microcredit program and applied for her first loan. She was granted a first loan of 7,000 rupees ($175). Jayashree immediately bought her husband’s auto rickshaw. Owning their own rickshaw business increased their income significantly.

Jayashree was able to pay back her entire loan in one year and became eligible for her second loan in 2008. Having proven her diligence, her second loan amount doubled to 15,000 rupees ($375). This time, she bought a sewing machine and started stitching bags. The family’s earnings have now tripled and she is earning 150 rupees ($3.75) a day. In addition, she opened a small shop next to her house to sell her products which is earning her an additional 100 rupees ($2.50) a day.

She is sending her elder son to a medical school. Her son dreams of becoming a doctor and thanks his mother’s business for providing his education, their own home and daily food.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu

Kayoko Mitsumatsu is a documentary filmmaker and avid yoga practitioner. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Yoga Gives Back: yogagivesback.org.

The post Yoga Gives Back – Microcredit Lending appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.