Update on the YES Programme in Italy |
This year YES (Yoga Education in Schools) was invited to Salorno for a convention about youth and their difficult relationships with public institutions and associations. With some impressive slides, more than 100 people, most of them educators and school directors, were informed about the potentialities of |
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Yoga in the field of education and interpersonal relationships. Christian Franceschini gave the lecture and was afterwards invited to attend more specific meetings with public schools directors. In Bolzano city, Franceschini is giving an introductory course on Astaunga Yoga to more than 120 teachers of Kindergarten aged children. They are all teachers of the public |
| kindergarten schools of South Tirol . 40 of them are getting personal training in starting a small yoga “education laboratory” in more than 11 kindergartens. The concepts of Gurukula and YES have been introduced to them and to the local government education authorities. The program is so successful that Franceschini has had to start 2 courses because so many teachers have enrolled. |  |
In Trento City Franceschini taught a professional development course for Primary and Secondary public school teachers on Yoga and Self-control in the Classroom. More than 30 teachers attended and told him afterwards that it was the most interesting professional development course they had attended in the past 10 years. Teachers and their adolescent daughters and sons are going to get further private training in Tantra and Yoga from the middle of October until December. |
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A total number of 50 copies of the book Tantric Biopsychology , written by Franceschini in Italian, were sold just in one week. Also many kiirtan CDs have been purchased by the teachers for use during certain moments of class lessons (like painting, arts etc.)
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For more information, you may contact Christian Franceschini at <viplava@tin.it> |
YES NEWS |
The YES manual for Early Childhood is in the final stages of preparation and will be available on CD soon. To purchase a copy, please write to amgk.glo@gurukul.edu. Work on the manual for elementary level is beginning with Didi Anandarama and Christian Franceschini and we invite input from all our schools. |
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| YES in Portugal By Rui Guimaraes and the Yoga Activities for Children team |
In September 2004 we formed a team of those interested to participate in a concrete program of Yoga for Children. As a result we developed yoga activities in four schools (three public and one private), once a week, during the entire last school year. We planned the activities according to Neohumanist Education principles and before initiating the program, we presented the general guidelines of Neohumanist philosophy to the headmasters in these schools. The program was very successful and the children loved the experience so we are |
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continuing the program for this school year and are working to expand to include four more schools, for a total of eight. In the beginning it was a hard task, because generally children are used to very competitive activities. We learned a lot from our first year and are now finalizing a file of activities to use this year, using and reinforcing good experiences and changing what did not work as well. |
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Another activity that we developed in the yoga centre, was the "Chapeu de Alquimia" (The Alchemy Hat), a workshop of Yoga and Arts. There were five sessions of 3 hours each session. In each of them there was a theme related with one nature element, yoga asanas and a different art expression. Each session started with a story with yoga asanas followed by exercises of the art of the day- painting, sculpture, theatre, etc. In the last session the parents were invited to take an active participation and they just loved the experience. An outline of the program is included on the next page. We have decided to repeat this project from November on this year. |
In June 2005 we participated in a big education event, promoted by the municipality - SintrAnima/ Anual - Educative Projects Forum where we shared yoga activities for children. These activities were prepared in such a way that the teachers, kindergarten educators and parents could participate. It was a very fruitful experience. This event had about 20,000 visitors in 8 days. |
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More recently, from 7 to 11 September we participated in the Vegetariana 2005 (vegetarian fair), selling vegetarian food, doing Tantra Yoga demonstrations, offering Yoga activities for children and sharing about Neohumanist Education. We got many students for the yoga courses starting now. In a short period of time we will be able to exchange some didactic material, some examples of good educative practices, etc. |
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| We wish great success to all involved in the education projects (and others of course) going on around the world, and for those who are thinking about start something: do it now! |
YOGA AND ARTS FOR CHILDREN |
This year we had an activity for children called “The Alchemy Hat”- a workshop of Yoga and Arts. There were five sessions (3 hours each session). In each of them there was a theme related with one nature element, asanas and a different art. Each session started with a story with asanas followed by exercises of the art of the day- painting, sculpture, theatre, etc. 1st. session- “CELEBRATION OF THE MOTHER EARTH” |
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Element: earth 2nd. session- “THE OCEAN OF FEELINGS” |
3rd. session- “THE BIRD THAT WAS REBORN FROM THE ASHES” 4rd. session- “THE TRIP OF THE BIRDS” |
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| - Exercises: creating mobiles with suspended figures (birds, butterflies); building nests (with clay) to offer to the birds |
5th. session- “THE FANTASTIC TREASURE HUNT” |
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