Between the 7th and 13th December the TeenYoga Summit exploded onto our screens raising just under £5000 for the foundation together with the raffle, which you can still enter!

217 people registered for the fabulous event, from all around the world entering the important conversation about yoga and wellbeing for young people. The highlight for me was when 4 young people from Soweto voiced their insights on the impact of yoga on their lives. These young people represent only a handful of the hundreds receiving yoga thanks to Dale and his team who were trained by Charlotta in Johannesburg in 2018. This fruition of some funds spent two years ago, gives us all a sense of how far a little money can go in spreading the benefits of yoga. Team South Africa are going to continue with the work of the foundation, offering the first ever Teen Yoga Ambassador programme in 2021 together with a cohort from around the world. More about this in the next newsletter!
The summit brought together experts in the fields of yoga, neuroscience, philosophy and research from as far a field as Costa Rica, India and the Netherlands. Dr Shirley Telles from India, made the case for yoga research, with solid examples of the evidence base taught on the course. Popular author SImon Haas offered an interactive workshop, which explored how we integrate yoga philosophy in our and our teens’ lives. Foundation trustee Jess helped us with our Marketing and had so many helpful tips for us in. how to evaluate the worth of our offerings. Sarah Kerrigan from Jellyfish helped us use Facebook more explicitly to maximise our advertising potential and Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, author and professor at Cambridge University gave a solid presentation on the importance of understanding the workings of the adolescent brain.

Uma Dinsmore-Tuli gave an hour-long animated workshop and talk where we co-created a nidra for young people and addressed the importance of recognising and honouring our cycles in order to achieve optimal health.

Steve Parry, Head of Yoga, explained exactly how yoga has worked as a whole school intervention at his school and helped other teachers do the same in their schools in a fruitful conversation. Jenny Thompson explored Teachers health and how to support the staff through yoga, something that the foundation supports whole-heartedly. In a cris de Coeur, many PRU workers came together to address the difficulties which are prevalent in schools catering for disadvantaged students. This discussion continues in their dedicated facebook page, which you can access here. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1017290465407394.

The event was so inspiring that it encouraged a few to create working groups to continue some of the conversations. Some teachers felt the need to get together to talk about TeenYoga in SEN here; https://www.facebook.com/groups/378913153404735/

There were quite a few working or wanting to work more with providing retreats for young people, and they started this group, if you would like to join them – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1465279117012712

Finally coming to fruition in 2021, is the Teen Yoga Ambassador course, outlined here: www.teenyogaambassadors.com and here on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/420115415843698. This has been

This project has been cooking for a long while and is finally coming to fruition in 2021, with the teens from the teen panel showing a great deal of interest and willing to take things online, which alleviates the teaching process and also allows it to reach students all over the world. More on this soon.

Another element which has been in the pipeline for a few years and is finally coming to fruition in 2021, is the membership scheme, which will be a continuous support scheme for graduates of the TeenYoga course. There will be three tiers, the standard level which exists on the Forum, will now also exist on the website, where there will be monthly themes including lesson plans, the second tier which will be more in depth and a top tier which will fast track graduates to a more successful career in TeenYoga. More about this later too!

So, as you can see the Summit was an incredibly fruitful even which also threw up a large group of volunteers – if you would like to be part of the success of the Foundation in 2021, please do not hesitate to contact nick@teenyogafoundation.com and we can assign you an exciting and stimulating role.