A Centretown-based program that uses yoga to help young people cope with life’s challenges has received a financial boost from a provincial funding body.
Radha Yoga Youth Outreach has received $66,000 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, a provincial agency that aims to strengthen voluntary sector services through investments in community-based initiatives.
“The foundation’s grants have a positive economic impact on Ontario communities,” said former Ontario Minister of Culture Aileen Carroll in a recent press release. “This funding supports the government’s efforts to foster growth by helping people and communities to capitalize on their existing strengths and build for the future.”
The Cooper Street centre, is a non-profit organization supported by community donations, was awarded the provincial grant late last month. The money will be spread out over three years and will help the outreach program become financially stable so it doesn’t have to rely on future grants, says Palma Wedman, Radha Yoga Youth outreach co-ordinator.
“Over the next three years, we’ll be developing a sustainability plan,” adds Joan Gamble, co-director of the program.
Some of the money will be used to maintain the centre and for travel expenses, but most of it will go to pay the yoga teachers’ salaries, she says.
Until recently, the program was made up of volunteers.
The Radha Yoga Youth Outreach program started out as a “small little outshoot” of the Radha Yoga Centre, says Gamble. The centre was established in 1984 and offers a specific style of teaching the ancient exercise and meditation technique that’s more reflective.
“The outreach program is completely, 100 per cent supported by the centre,” says Rachel Barrett, co-ordinator for Radha Yoga Youth Outreach.
The program also works closely with the Youth Services Bureau, which provides a range of support services to youth aged 12 and older in Ottawa who experience physical or emotional difficulties.
The outreach program is a “youth-teaching-youth” operation in which young yoga teachers go out into the community to teach yoga to youth in need. The outreach program began in 2004 to support teen mothers, homeless families, new immigrants, and other at-risk youth.
“Yoga gives them the tools to cope with the realities of life,” says Gamble. “These youth are facing real and challenging issues and yoga gives them the chance to step back from their stressful lives, and relax.”