Giving Back: How You And The HuffPost Living Community Can Help Struggling Families

Today, as HuffPost and AOL unite to launch the Huffington Post Media Group, we're celebrating by making a statement about the importance of giving back and helping others.

Led by HuffPost Impact -- The Huffington Post's section devoted to service, causes and volunteering -- every HuffPost section is featuring a group or individual who is taking action and inspiring others during these challenging times. Like the rest of the world, our hearts and minds are also focused on Japan, and we've created a resource page for everyone wishing to support the emergency relief efforts.

And we're thrilled to announce that Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, is joining the Huffington Post Media Group as Strategic Adviser for Social Impact. Stone will help the company to create innovative social impact and cause-based initiatives.

AOL/Huffington Post Media Group has also issued a 30-day Service Challenge to every one of its employees worldwide, encouraging them to give their time to non-profits in their local communities and organizing volunteer events in 16 cities.

We hope you'll join us in utilizing the power of online journalism to help people get involved, work together, and bring about real change.

* * * * *

For many of us, yoga evokes images of toned arms and tight cores, but one organization is pioneering an entirely novel use for the ancient meditative practice: helping disadvantaged youths and families cope with hardship.

Street Yoga, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Ore., aims to help people struggling with homelessness, poverty, abuse, addiction and trauma by providing them with yoga classes and lessons in mindful breathing and compassionate communication.

Founded by Mark Lilly in 2002, Street Yoga initially recruited a handful of instructors to teach yoga at a Portland day shelter and a school serving homeless youth. Since that time it has grown from a grassroots effort to a staffed nonprofit organization. Street Yoga now trains 200 people a year -- mostly yoga teachers, social workers and schoolteachers -- in the skills necessary to offer yoga to the needy and at-risk. These volunteers serve over 1,000 individuals annually, bringing yoga and wellness workshops to the social service scenes of Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York and other major cities.

Skeptics might ask what place yoga, let alone nebulous concepts like "inner balance," have in providing measurable help to the homeless and poor, but Street Yoga points to mounting scientific evidence that yoga helps with depression, anxiety, PTSD and drug addiction.

As Lilly explained to NPR in August 2009, yoga provides a measure of order, strength and balance to people dealing with extremely difficult situations.

Want to get involved?

Street Yoga's website details the following opportunities:

• Become a Street Yoga teacher. If you are passionate about yoga and helping at-risk youth, sign up to participate in an upcoming teacher training.
• Volunteer. Put your administrative expertise to good use by helping Street Yoga organize events and run its office. Send a volunteer request explaining how you'd like to contribute.
• Donate or sponsor a program. Your financial support, no matter the size, will help Street Yoga's programs grow and evolve.

Photo by Campbell Salgado Studio. See more Street Yoga portraits on their blog.

Comments

[TWM1]

06:43 AM on 03/18/2011

Another Yoga instructor getting themselves noticed!

[streetyoga]

05:08 PM on 03/18/2011

We applaud the Huffington Post for bringing to light small service oriented nonprofits who are doing their best with very little. If that media exposure immediately turns someone's generous service and integrity filled mission into 'just getting noticed' then how will any social change happen for people who really need a helping hand? Should all nonprofits operate in obscurity because you feel it's more legitimate than having a Huffington Post article written? I think your comment is misguided, and unfair. The media writing stories about humble service oriented people making grassroots community change is vital for all our communities.

[dblueII]

03:58 AM on 03/17/2011

Well, It certainly won't hurt.
My instinct is to cry out that these people need basic services, not sun salutations. But what they need as much is for someone to treat them the respect and dignity due every human. Thank you for doing that.

[streetyoga]

04:54 PM on 03/18/2011

In our classes one of our main objectives is to build respect through community partnerships and wellness. Resilience and self worth through self care is part of what yoga provides. People absolutely need their basic needs met - and one of those basic needs is valuing your own health both through consumables (like food) and through mindful life long care. Thanks for connecting and joining/moderating the conversation.

[spilkus]

11:57 AM on 03/15/2011

I think that it is also a good idea to give the homeless incense or to burn incense near where the homeless are because, well, you know, they are often a little smelly.

[dblueII]

04:01 AM on 03/17/2011

I could say something very funny, but were not at a Comedy Central Homeless Children roast.
If your gonna make a sick joke, at least make it a good one.

[kellygreen]

10:21 AM on 03/15/2011

Yoga for these people should be an adjunct to traditional mental health services....not presented as a replacement.

Meditation and yoga can also break down our inner defenses against repressed trauma, and Shadow parts of our character personality that have been pushed into the unconscious....and make these painful parts of our experience MORE conscious, and intitially amplify the pain.

Offering these practices to people who are likely to have deeper and more painful histories of trauma...and larger, more aggressive Shadows that are prone to acting out...may make them worse not better.

May increase their suffering, not lessen it without appropriate psychological and social support.

Their pain must be confronted and resolved...and making it conscious is part of that process. But it cannot be bypassed, or simply soothed away.

I'm all for presenting people at the margins of society with these practices...but it has to be done in the right manner.

[streetyoga]

11:04 AM on 03/15/2011

Kellygreen - thank you for your informed post. We here at SY totally appreciate and agree the yoga, mindfulness, and meditation can provide a deeper understanding and awareness of trauma - this can be one of its benefits. Our programming is run in conjunction, on location and partnering with social service sites. Our curriculum is run in tandem and not at all to replace traditional therapies. It's our vision that yoga and mindfulness work partners with and informs traditional therapies. In fact, many of our partner sites have moved traditional therapy sessions to after the yoga class to reap the benefits of the yoga, the relaxation, the safe container, and that mindful deepening.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment and we deeply agree that all people, regardless of their circumstances, should have the right to heal deeply, emotionally, physically, psychologically and safely. Street Yoga's curriculum and program structure were developed and are routinely reviewed by both E-RYTs and LCSWs to ensure this balanced and safe environment are maintained.

[kellygreen]

11:23 AM on 03/15/2011

That's reassuring.

Thank you. Good luck.

[Jeanne Ball]

08:32 PM on 03/14/2011

Great to hear of your efforts to help people at risk. I agree that teaching people techniques for inner balance and health provides a foundation for overcoming tragedy and misfortune.

[streetyoga]

11:05 AM on 03/15/2011

Jeanne, Thanks so much for the support! We're honored to be featured here.

[Audrey Reed]

04:39 PM on 03/14/2011

It is carzy that HP wants us to go through yahoo or g mail account to share an article