|
 | |  | |  | |  |
able to involve in a number of outreach activities. Through these activities the team wants to make Kundalini Yoga and Meditation techniques available to people who need mental and physical help but who normally have no access to yoga and meditation based support. The activities are small scale, and also aim at giving the Cambodian team members the opportunity to contribute their teaching skills to the benefit of those groups in Cambodian society who are disadvantaged and less prosperous. Aziza and Lakeside Schools The Kundalini Yoga Cambodia team started yoga and meditation classes at the Aziza School in the Tonle Bassac resettlement area in 2007. The area was the last part remaining of the degraded apartment buildings close to the Russian Embassy which provide a home for over 300 of the poorest families in Phnom Penh. The area could be called a slum with many very poor families, and the area is notorious for its brothels and the high rate of criminality. In recent years a large part of the area was evacuated and demolished to make place for middle and high income housing and commercial buildings. Although many of the inhabitants have official ownership titles to their property, this was either ignored or valued far below the current market value of this area. Some families who were removed received (if anything at all) a small financial compensation (a few hundred dollars), or a small piece of land at a location 20 to 30 kilometers outside of the city. The last parts were removed in the beginning of 2009.
income settlements near the Boeung Kak lake have come under threat.
run with the help of volunteers, sponsors community schools in some of these areas providing education and outreach programs to children living in poverty. Activities are designed to raise these children’s opportunities for their future through education and character building, to provide tools to avoid abuse/exploitation, and time to have fun in a safe, caring environment.
The students are between 7 and 20 years old and the classes, with boys and girls mixed, are lively events. Sela is the main teacher for these classes.
Since the beginning of 2008 the team has been teaching weekly classes for staff of a support and schooling programme for children from families of scavengers on the municipal waste dump site. This has grown from very small to caring for 4000 children, from babies to young adolescents. Focusing mainly at stress relief and staff wellbeing in the beginning, the team will now start a Pre-Teacher Training course for teachers, so that yoga and meditation techniques can be integrated in regular classes and used as tools to relief stress and trauma.
At the end of 2008 the team visited the Wat Opot project located in the compound of a village pagoda in the country side south of Phnom Penh. The Wat Opot project started in 2000 as a project for the dying. Destitute people: individuals, families, single parent households in which one or more members were dying from HIV/AIDS were offered a place in a small community, where they could die peacefully, and where orphaned children, often also suffering from the virus could stay and be cared for. With the introduction of free retroviral drugs the death rate of those affected by HIV/AIDS has gone down and as long as this medication is available and regularly taken HIV/AIDS affected persons can live a longer and active life. The kids at Wat Opot now will grow up, need parentage and education, need to learn to make a living. The Wat Opot project has changed into a project for the living.
help with stress and trauma release, hoping that some of the kids may be interested to take on teaching and serve this small community. The team now conducts monthly classes for the children at Wat Opot. The costs of traveling there is met by donations from students who visit the classes at The House.
The team has been asked to help with enriching a number of workshops and group activities with breathing, exercise and meditation activities. Focusing on concentration, relaxation, but also on deepening individual and inter-personal understanding, the team will participate in particular in workshops and group activities that relate to conflict resolution, social and cultural relationships, and capacity and identity building for individuals as well as groups.
administrative staff of UN organisations and NGOs. For these activities Rita and Kanika are the main resource persons. Supporting the Kundalini Yoga Cambodia activities: more information: click here Contact us at: info@kundaliniyogacambodia.org |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| Updated: 23 12 2009 |
RETURN TO: