Many want to make a change. A few want to make a change too and actually do something about it. Yogacharini Maitreyi and volunteers from her organisation Arkaya and acquaintances have been creating that change for the last four years in the lives of children at the Ayodhya Kuppam near Marina through the Child Empowerment Project.
Taking action
Maitreyi is a yoga instructor who moved base to Vancouver, Canada, where she trains Yoga trainers and also holds classes in Europe and Sri Lanka. Every year, she spends two months in Chennai, and during one such break, she had this brainwave to make a difference. “I basically like to impact as many people as possible with yogic principle. And I also found a lot of people complaining about society in general and not doing anything about it. So that's when this idea came about and this slum project just fell in place.”
At the slum, even when Maitreyi is away, the volunteers regularly visit the children every week and try to provide them with positive role models by creating an emotional connect with them. They need to know that there are people to take care of them.
But starting out wasn't easy because understandably both the volunteers and slum dwellers were apprehensive of each other. “In the beginning a lot of people had a lot of fears. It was a slum known for crime and it was very dirty. So there was a general fear of catching an infection. But frankly, I told them you could catch an infection just about anywhere. When we began, I realised there wouldn't be a big group anyway because of all these apprehensions,” recalls Maitreyi.
Cleaner environment and mind
One of the first things that Maitreyi and her group realised they had to do something about was the heaps of garbage strewn all over the place. So they organised the children in the area into groups and announced that whichever group collected maximum garbage would win toys as prizes. These toys were collected from volunteers and other people. Setting about their work eagerly with plastic bags and gloves provided by the volunteers, the children, to the amazement of all, cleared up the entire place in less than half a day. “All they needed was someone to tell them to do it” says Maitreyi.
During the regular weekly sessions, the children are taught yoga, participate in painting competitions and taken out to different places like theme parks.
When asked about the impact of yoga on these kids, Maitreyi says that before beginning the activity, she found the children to be very agitated and restless. This is bacuse of the environment they grow up in witnessing a lot of emotional and physical trauma that their parents go through. So the kids are overloaded with emotions as well. Once they began the yoga exercises, they have become a lot calmer. Also, the interaction with positive role models has made them more open to other professions. “Earlier, the kids' only role models was their parents. They would say madam ‘naan tholil pannitu varan' (passing on the ganja). Then as we kept asking them a lot of questions as to what they wanted to become, they came to know that they can charter their life early and have choices”, explains Maitreyi.
The programme
The culmination of years of learning, changing lives and having fun in the process is the Joy of Yoga programme – Building a Conscious Individual and Community. This is the first time that the volunteers and the children of the slum will be coming out to perform for the public and share what they have learnt over the course of the positive interaction. The three-hour programme will first feature a performance by the children who will sing songs on the theme of personal and environmental cleanliness. Then there will be a Burra katha performance by the yoga instructors of Arkaya who will highlight the yogic principles in their humorous, interactive presentation. And finally, Maitreyi will talk about yogic principles and their importance, “so that people know that yoga is not a post-retirement plan”.
This ticketed programme is in aid of the Child Empowerment Project in Chennai slums.
The event
Venue: Vani Mahal, GN Chetty Road, T. Nagar, Chennai, India
Date: February 07
Time: 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Tickets Available for Rs. 100, 200, 300 and 500. Donor passes also available for those who wish to donate more than Rs.500
Tickets available at:
Arkaya Awareness Centre , A block, 4th floor, no 3, Gemini Parsn Apartments. Chennai 600006. Ph 42144626 / 28221051. Email: arkayoga@gmail.com
Landmark Outlets , Chennai. Ph: 044 – 42139397 (Nungambakkam)
Focus Gallery , # 59, TTK Road, Alwarpet, Chennai – 600018. Ph: 044 24662550 (or) 044 24670699
There are also free seating areas.
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What you can do
- Sponsor the programme
- Make this initiative part of your CSR Activity
- Volunteer
- Join them and encourage the kids during the programme on the February 07.
- Work on your physical emotional and mental stability so that you can mentor a child
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Yoga for teenagers
“Teenage is a time of flux where you are moving from childhood to adulthood where you have to make responsible choices for yourself. To make responsible choices, you need to be aware and yoga gives you that awareness to be able to make responsible choices.
Levels of awareness:
Awareness of body: How to hold your body right up to what you put into it;
Awareness of emotions: Yoga gives teenagers the tool to be aware of it and deal with it. Depending on families, youngsters are generally not allowed a particular emotion. In yoga, if you are angry you are angry but how you can logically release it is what yoga teaches.
Awareness of mind: Old subconscious messages that have stuck with you like when a teacher said you are not good in a particular subject you began believing it. Yoga will help you realise that negative trap your mind is in and shift it.
