We are yoga teachers and practitioners with a vision
of bridging the yoga community in the U.S. with people who need help in India, the birthplace of yoga. We recognize that our lives have been forever changed by the wisdom we have taken from yoga and we feel a need to give back to. Nearly forty percent of the world's poor live in India. Out of a population of 1.1 billion over one fourth earn less than a dollar day. We see Yoga Gives Back as a gesture of gratitude for all that we learn and share through yoga.

Joel Bender (co-founder)

In 2005 I visited southern India to study yoga. It was there that I first envisioned bridging the yoga community in the U.S. together with people who need help in India, the birthplace of yoga. Thanks to Grameen Foundation and Yoga Journal this is now becoming a reality. On this website you'll see the faces and hear the voices of people whose lives are improving as result of Yoga Gives Back. Compassion is a uniquely human quality that calls on our highest nature to respond to another person, an animal, even the earth itself if it is in need. I believe this is truly the highest yoga we can undertake, a tangible expression of the unity that underlies all life.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu (co-founder, documentary filmmaker)

Unlike any other exercises I practiced before, from the first yoga class, it had profound impact not only on my body but on my mind. It made me feel so relaxed and serene after the class, that I got addicted. While I was benefitting so much from regular yoga practice, I also started feeling overwhelmingly self-indulgent about it. I started taking donation classes for various causes. All along, I knew that Yoga is from India, but I somehow I related India to the past and not to the present. India felt far away to me. But one day, through my growing knowledge of Nobel Peace Recipient Dr Yunus and his revolutionary micro credit, it hit me that as a happy and healthy yoga practitioner, I should be able to contribute a little to today's India's problemsÑto give back for the gift of yoga. Just as with taking donation classes, if we in the yoga community come together, we can do so much to help the poor in India. This really made sense to me and I have decided to put all my physical and spiritual resources I gain from this wonderful heritage of India to work toward this goal. I hope that you, who love yoga, share the same feeling and join us in this campaign: Yoga Gives Back.

Contact Yoga Gives Back: yogagivesback@earthlink.net

Learn more about microcredit:
www.grameenfoundation.org