What is the Yoga Care Foundation?
The Yoga Care Foundation is a public nonprofit charity which is being founded by Yoga Yoga and our community of Austin yoga students and teachers.
What is the mission of the Foundation?
The Foundation is dedicated to growing the art, science and community of yoga. It has 3 primary missions:
1. Community Outreach
To provide access to yoga instruction for low-income individuals
2. Scientific Research
To research, explore and inform about the physiological, psychological and therapeutic effects of yoga.
3. Education and Training
To
educate about the traditional teachings and benefits of yoga and
provide scholarships and grants for yoga teacher certification and
ongoing training.
Why was the Foundation formed?
As a community, we
at Yoga Yoga have a commitment to serve. We found that from time to
time the corporate form of our for-profit yoga center was not the best
possible structure for doing things that are better suited to a
non-profit environment. As a public charity, the Yoga Care Foundation
lets us direct energy into supporting the growth of yoga through
research, education and teaching as charity. The Foundation also lets
us include the larger yoga community in achieving the goal of enhancing
yoga’s role in our culture’s health and well-being.
What are the first two projects the Foundation will fund?
The
Yoga Care Foundation is in the process of creating a national community
oriented ‘yoga-grant’ program to support individual initiatives focused
on bringing yoga to traditionally low income groups within our
communities. A structure will be developed to allow teachers to
receive income for choosing to contribute through teaching yoga to
those in need. The first round of grants will be awarded at the end of
2007.
In September, 2007 the Foundation will begin participating in an outcome study to research the effects of yoga on individuals’ health and well-being when they first begin a yoga practice. The YCF will provide infrastructure support and partial operational funding for a study being developed and coordinated with an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital at the Harvard Medical School.
