Tools for life

As I stand over a particularly energetic fifth grade boy to keep him from kicking the girl next to him, I’m amazed: they’re actually quiet. And still — for the most part. These five minutes of stillness could be the most important gift that these kids have received all week.

I teach weekly yoga classes to fifth graders at a school in Ciudad Bolivar, an immense informal settlement in the south of Bogotá. A large proportion of the residents of the community where I teach have been forcibly displaced by the country's ongoing conflict. In our weekly yoga classes we focus on developing self-knowledge, critical thinking skills, concentration and a sense of home in the body through play, relaxation and observation.

I have learned through my own experience the ways in which yoga can improve the lives of young people, helping them to overcome trauma and make healthier decisions. I’m convinced that yoga will become more commonly used in development work as the knowledge of the benefits of this practice spreads. These benefits include:

Photo: Danielle Ancin/Mercy Corps

• Critical thinking. Students are never required to do any of the poses, but rather are encouraged to make their own decisions through observing the sensations in their bodies and their emotions. In this way, they develop skills in critical thinking and healthy decision-making.
• Self-knowledge and self-esteem, developed through observation of the body, energy, and emotions during slow movements and holds, and through acknowledging individual differences in a positive way.
• Stress management. Yoga provides students with tools for dealing with stress and difficult emotions.
• Physical well-being. Yoga improves the functioning of the digestive, nervous, endocrine, respiratory and cardio-vascular systems, strengthens bones and improves muscle strength and flexibility.
• Improved concentration, resulting in better academic performance.

In Colombia, young people are affected by forced displacement, recruitment by armed groups, violence and abuse. According to UNICEF, two million minors — out of a total of 18 million in the country — are physically and/or sexually abused every year. In 87 percent of reported sex abuse cases, the victim is under 18 years old.

In addition, it is estimated that some four million people have been forcibly displaced by the conflict in the country since the 1980s. Children in Colombia are regularly exposed to violence, and many are recruited to participate in armed groups.

In light of the special needs of Colombian children and adolescents, yoga can provide some additional benefits including: experiencing and relearning relaxation, without which trauma cannot be healed; reinforcing a sense of personal boundaries; relearning ways of relating to one’s body in non-sexual terms; channeling and managing the sexual energy that is often activated as a result of early forced sexual activity; and finding a sense of stability and home in one’s own body.

I’ve begun to apply my experience to Mercy Corps’ programs as well. In our Sports for Change program, Mercy Corps uses soccer and yoga in an afterschool program to promote gender awareness and combat child labor in marginalized communities. I train our local partners —who work directly with the youth participants —in the basics of yoga instruction, considerations for specific youth populations and methods for integrating program educational themes with physical activities. Our partners — often youth themselves who have never been exposed to yoga — take part with enthusiasm, immediately recognizing the benefits yoga can provide to the kids they work with.

In the coming month, I will be working with Mercy Corps Colombia’s humanitarian and emergency assistance team to incorporate yoga into the psycho-social component of a project with internally displaced persons. Through this process the adult, adolescent and child participants will learn tools for handling stress, managing anxiety and depressive feelings, and building self-awareness, self-reliance and confidence — tools that will continue to serve them as the project comes to an end and as they continue with their lives.

As the children lay in savasana, corpse pose, I instruct them to feel their breath in their bellies, and I’m immediately reminded by a bright little boy that corpses don’t breathe. Right.

These little ones have also taught me the importance of patience, establishing clear rules and boundaries, and focusing on the positive. And most importantly, they've taught me that we never know what is going on in another person’s mind or body, nor what they’ve gone through in the past.

For this reason, I believe so strongly in giving youth tools for life that they can employ themselves, and that no one can take away from them.