AILSA CHANG, HOST:
For Donatien Fundi, 1 of the 60,000 refugees at the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi, learning yoga was a path towards healing. The camp was founded in 1994, amid the Rwandan genocide, and is now home to refugees fleeing conflicts throughout central and Eastern Africa. Fundi wanted to introduce yoga to others, but he needed his own teacher to do so. The one he found, Daniel Max, lives in Boston, but together, they have brought yoga to the camp and are changing lives.
DONATIEN FUNDI: I was introduced to yoga by the therapist at that time, with a purpose of rehabilitation and recovery from the past trauma that I had. The first type of practice that I was introduced to was the ponopono (ph) prayer.
Ho'oponopono (ph).
This is, like, affirmations - I'm sorry, please forgive me, I'm sorry, please forgive me. And the instructor could also tell me, like, to let it go, the stress, let it go, all the past is our friend (ph), and I need to live in the past to prepare the future. And this is how I came to understand that, wow, my mind changed completely. And even though I started to do this movement, I always had missing some formal training to help me. And this is how I came in touch with the JP Centre yoga.
DANIEL MAX: He reached out when we were still doing hybrid teacher training, and I said, OK, well, why don't we just start working one on one? You know, teach me a class. I'll teach you a class. And then he brought on a couple of other people. And it just grew from there.
And lift your shoulders off your neck and onto your back.
FUNDI: (Non-English language spoken).
MAX: And I think part of it was that he has been teaching for a few years already, but he was really the only person in the camp who was doing all of this work. And so as people became more interested and as we got more organized, we were able to travel there and really engage.
FUNDI: (Non-English language spoken).
MAX: Stay lower.
FUNDI: (Non-English language spoken).
For some people, they said, wow, we want to be flexible. Some, they said, wow, we want to feel the recovery from the trauma that we have. Most of the people, once they join the class, their experience is always like, wow, I can tell you how beautiful it is. And currently we operate a community yoga studio, and it's always full of people. So whatever we always do is try to create so that anyone can fit in and also trying to split multiple classes. We have children's special classes. We have teenagers' classes. We also have adult classes. And we also operate a school outreach program.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Non-English language spoken).
FUNDI: So for the little kids, we try to teach them through play. For instance, the poses, they're adjusted. For example, the goddess pose, we call it the robot.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: I am a robot.
FUNDI: I am a robot.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: I am a robot.
FUNDI: Because it's look like robot, and we make the children understand this is robot pose. So also the other poses, like, instead of teaching them down facing dog, we just mentioned it, let's bark like a dog and just pose like a dog.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Imitating dog barking).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Imitating dog barking).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Imitating dog barking).
FUNDI: Everyone around the world should know that there are people worldwide who are practicing yoga. And here in the camp, it is a tool to help people finding another life. So here in the camp, it is more than a luxury, and it's the only medicine that help people to recover from the trauma, to find another life and also empowerment and also personal growth. They need also to find a way for them to grow and to succeed in this life as human beings, not just as refugees.
(Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Non-English language spoken).
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