Holistic Life, Baltimore Nonprofit, Teaches Yoga To Inner-City Kids

When brothers Ali and Atman Smith returned to their childhood home in Baltimore, Md., after college they were shocked by the violence, poverty and "lack of family" that had infiltrated their neighborhood, they wrote on their website .

"It wasn't what we left, when we left the neighborhood to go to college. So when we came back, we saw a need there," Atman told NBC.

To fight back against the violence, the Smiths joined up with their college friend Andres Gonzalez, to establish the Holistic Life Foundation nine years ago.

The nonprofit has taught yoga to more than 1,000 at-risk children -- for free -- and also provides vital after-school tutoring and mentorship reports NBC.

Though there is no scientific proof that yoga can assuage anxiety and anger, it's certainly changing the lives of the children at the foundation.

"When someone wants to fight me I start to do deep breathing," Janaisa Brown told NBC. "I start breathing and I can calm myself down."

Comments

[hawaiianstile]

08:33 PM on 12/09/2011

this is great. yoga is a great activity for anybody. i really want to get back in to it one of these days.

[eric14]

05:59 PM on 12/09/2011

Mass Tai Chi in the streets would be good. Do it globally, on screen, non-stop. We can all join in for the time we have.

[Vanessa1129]

03:05 PM on 12/09/2011

WTG Smith brothers!!!

[Teresa Wages]

01:33 PM on 12/09/2011

Absolutely Amazing! Truely beautiful! We need to see more of this going around the globe. Thank you for the inspiration!

[Rebecca Hagman]

12:44 PM on 12/09/2011

There is over 5,000 years of experience and evidence of the efficacy of yoga. Western medicine simply doesn't acknowledge that for preventative and holistic health is foreign to allopathic medicine. IAYT (Int'l Assn. of Yoga Therapy) is changing that! They are putting time proven methods to Western tests and coming up smelling like nirvana!