Call to Arms: creative people, use your energy to make some seriously positive social change happen

Hackney Yoga Project is about to go on a major fundraising push and need a powerful visual identity and story-telling strategy.  Next Wednesday November 30^th (1-5pm, in London’s Great Titchfield Street W1), social mission and change agent Good for Nothing has organised a four hour intensive creative session.  Some of the women will be there, too.

Get involved now

We are looking for designers and creative people across all platforms from the creative industries to help us.  The aim of Wednesday’s session is to produce a more clear-cut and concise visual brand identity, which will enable us to push forward our vital fundraising proposals.


If you would like to take part, please join the ning group and RSVP here: http://tiny.cc/bzhxi


Full creative brief here
Hackney Yoga Project exists to enable refugee and asylum-seeking women to practice yoga.  Yoga is a powerful and transformative practice and these women are having a rough time. 

The women we work with are determined to make life better for themselves, despite the little control they have due to circumstances beyond their control like war and human rights abuse.

Good for Nothing and Eye magazine support Hackney Yoga Project's search for visual identity

Hackney Yoga Project is delighted to announce that the brief to create our visual identity is now live. 

We’re about to go on a major fundraising push and a super visual ID is essential to power the effort.

If you’re interested in getting involved in creating this visual ID and doing some good for nothing, please join this ning group for the next steps.

The brief was launched as a ‘live challenge’ as part of a presentation by the brilliant ‘Good for Nothing’, the social mission of The Pipeline Project, that gives time, money and energy to do stuff that supports people trying to make positive impact and change happen.

The presentation took place at the tenth annual St Bride's Library conference, ‘Critical Tensions’, hosted by Eye magazine, the international review of graphic art Eye magazine. 

We thank Good for Nothing and Eye magazine for their generous support.

Watch this space

In graphic design the phrase ‘critical tensions’ is frequently described as a positive in design, with designers balancing opposing constraints and visual ideas in often ‘perfect tension’.

We think critical tension is a good way to describe Yoga practice.  While 'perfect' does not apply to the situations of the refugee and asylum-seeking women we work with, 'critical' and 'tension' certainly do.

Big thanks also to the best inner city farm in the world, Hackney City Farm, Yogamatters and the British Wheel of Yoga, the UK’s official governing body of Yoga, for their ongoing support.

Read the full report here.

Super English classes and textile printing joins Hackney Yoga Project

You are your own best teacher: Yoga's premise.

Hackney Yoga Project is delighted to announce we are now running English classes and Songololo Feet on the Mat – a vibrant new textile project delivered by community textile printing project Songololo Feet. 


The refugee and asylum-seeking women who come to Hackney Yoga Project said that English classes and creative workshops, especially working with textiles, would be a welcome addition to the project.  So we've taken them up on it.

We think that running English classes for the refugee community after yoga is an ideal combination as people learn better when they are relaxed.

Songololo Feet on the Mat not only provides opportunity for learning and practicing English, but it teaches transferable and marketable skills – not to mention the fun element.  (Printing textiles and sewing to reggae!)

Design and print by Mani.

English classes are led by experienced ESL teacher Tamsin Robertson, on a voluntary basis.  Tamsin works as an English language teacher in London and has taught English to Tibetan monks through the The Office of the Tibetan Government in Exile in India and at the Gatwick Detainee Welfare Group in Sussex, including other projects. 

Songololo Feet on the Mat is led by Maia Kruger and funded by Corner Space, a not-for-profit organisation that provides creative workshops for grass roots organisations.  Maia is has over 20 years’ experience in producing and marketing her garments and has a B.A. in Art in the Community.  She is currently working towards an MA in Art Therapy.

For more information about Hackney Yoga Project and how to make referrals, contact hackneyyogaproject@gmail.com

Yoga matters – on and off the mat



Huge thanks and a deep bow to Yogamatters, the brilliant supplier of everything you'd ever want to do with yoga. 

Last week Yogamatters made an extremely generous donation of mats, blocks and belts to Hackney Yoga Project – a very happy surprise for participants on their first day back after the summer break and a shining example of yoga practice off the mat. 

One the main aims of this pilot project is to make yoga accessible to one of the most marginalised and under-represented groups in the UK – refugee and asylum-seeking women.  We want to see what the barriers are to individuals participating and what can be done practically to address them.  We are also carefully monitoring the effects of yoga on the group.

Blocks and straps: big help

The individuals we work with have all experienced violations of their human rights and profound trauma, which generally make the body very stiff. 

Blocks to sit on and straps to help stretch the limbs can really help ease pain and tension.  The new turquoise mats raise the spirit, especially when the dappled light falls in through the glass doors of Hackney City Farm’s straw bale building, making the colour glow.

So from everyone at Hackney Yoga Project, thank you so much!

And for anyone that doesn’t yet know Yogamatters – brilliant shop, excellent and ethical products and very lovely people.  The team comprises yogis from all walks of yoga life, all committed to providing the best customer service possible and to trying their best to protect the planet.

Hackney Yoga Project wins funds from UK National Governing Body of Yoga

Wishing knows no boundaries at Hackney City Farm.

Great thanks to the British Wheel of Yoga for awarding Hackney Yoga Project funding from its new Equity Fund.

The funds will contribute to developing the Hackney Yoga Project pilot.  For example, providing bus fares for those who would not otherwise be able to join us.

Today, one woman travelled two and a half hours by bus from south-west London to join the East End project based at Hackney City Farm.  Not all that want to attend can afford the bus fare.  Some of the women on our waiting list are destitute – not ‘street homeless’ but living off hand-outs from friends and charity.

Fiesty lamb (aged four hours) crosses boundaries at the farm.

As Sport England's National Governing Body of Yoga, the British Wheel of Yoga aims to encourage greater participation both in yoga in general and in the Wheel itself, amongst minority groups.

The new Equity Fund was established following research conducted by the British Wheel of Yoga in 2010 on how the charity could improve its approach to including minority groups in yoga activities.

Practicing yoga at Hackney Yoga Project doesn't just mean performing poses on the mat in  Hackney City Farm’s straw bale room, overlooking bluebells and wild tulips...

Today yoga also meant having hot seasonal soup and fresh bread, with the other refugee and asylum-seeking women, laughing at Hackney City Farm’s new born lambs, and making wishes on the wishing tree in the garden.

Bolivia and Rwanda in female form

First you decide the most important thing to say, preferably in gold.

Bolivia and Rwanda in female form were first on the yoga mats at our first ever session in Hackney City Farm's cosy straw bale room.

The room has an earthy feel, high ceilings and a wooden floor.  Light falls through the two big windows, that look out onto the trees and farm garden, and at the front of the room, there's a wood-burning stove that provides warmth, glow and, now and again, a gentle crackling as a log shifts in the grate. 

Then you pin it to a door, lay out the mats and make the room cosy. 

In the background you could hear the traffic from the road outside the farm, and when it lulled there was spring birdsong.  There are lots of very old trees around the farm and lots of very tiny birds. 

The women who attended Hackney Yoga Project's first session were referred by the British Red Cross' Refugee Services unit and the Medical Foundation for the care of victims of torture.  We also look forward to welcoming women who are part of Room2Heal, an Islington-based healing community for refugees, those seeking asylum, and others who have suffered human rights violations.
 

Where there is life there is hope.

After yoga, we ate seasonal vegetable soup and homemade bread in the strawbale room at trestle tables, decorated with sweet pink hyacinth, daffodils and bluebells, in pots borrowed from the farm garden. 

The sweetness of the scent reminded one of her mother, whose favourite flower had been white hyacinth.

The woman talked in varying proficiency of English, about the difference in pronunciation between ‘bread’ and ‘breath’, as in ‘to breath' (we chalked the words up on the blackboard), and we laughed lots. 

The women talked about how it was to have no friends at all, no one to talk to, no family in the same country, and how it was to learn English when you're frightened to go out of the house because of flashbacks to the events that had led you to leave your country and everything you knew, to seek asylum in a foreign country – through no fault of your own, just the unpredictable circumstances of life.

In the pipeline: sun swineutations, assisted tail stretches, snout warm-ups, etc.

And there was lots of smiling, and people’s eyes were bright, and we talked about making new friends, and how good the soup was, and how to pay money onto an Oyster card when you don’t have a bank account...

And after lunch we went out to the farmyard to look at Larry the donkey, the orange Tamworth pigs, slumbering blissfully in the mud, with the golden hairs of their ears and snouts catching the light; the Indian runner ducks and goats and sheep, and the visitors enjoying them, young and old, and I thought, how very lucky we are to live in peacetime in this country. 

Hackney Yoga Project looks forward to welcoming with open arms all those who have yet to step across the threshold to practice yoga and have some lunch.

Hackney Yoga Project

The 'Namaste' gesture means respect, and may you know freedom and happiness.

On the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, Hackney Yoga Project is proud to announce that our doors will open in just under two weeks, with refugee and asylum seeking women being the first on the yoga mats.

Hackney is one of the most deprived and under-resourced inner city areas in the UK, with one of the largest refugee and asylum seeking populations in London. 

This pilot project aims to develop a best practice model for working with yoga and refugees/those seeking asylum.  We are monitoring the main barriers to individuals participating, issues that arise during project time and the effects of yoga on participants, among other metrics.

Hackney Yoga Project will take place at the much loved community resource, Hackney City Farm, where we’ll be teaching yoga and serving tea and a delicious seasonal lunch at the farm's fabulous Frizzante cafe. 

The women we'll be working with have been displaced from their homelands due to war and natural disaster.  Many have experienced gender based violence and sexual abuse.  Some are also destitute, living off charity and friends' hand-outs, as is the case for a large number of women in the asylum process in the UK, according the British Red Cross report, 'Not gone but forgotten' (2010).
 

Our mission is to improve the quality of life for refugee and those seeking asylum, through the practice of yoga in Hackney.  

Yoga has many widely recognised theraputic benefits, including being more relaxed, having more energy, becoming stronger and more flexible in body and mind, and improving self-esteem and confidence.

Hackney Yoga Project is supported by Hackney City Farm, Big Lottery and British Red Cross, who we thank very much – for their generous spirits, invaluable advice, and support and funds, which have enabled the project to move from idea to reality.