All Kunga trainings, retreats, and workshops are dedicated to all of the students past and present on the infinite journey of discovering and sharing the joy and peace of yoga. It is my deepest desire that all who take on the practices of yoga as a serious path of study and self-inquiry will ultimately live for the means of serving others, and that we will create continuous small and large ripples of peace throughout our own communities and beyond.
“Kunga” is the Kinyarwandan word for “help” or “service”; Kinyarwandan being the native language in Kigali, Rwanda. My first experience with Rwandan orphans, the Mizero Children of Rwandan who lost their families in the Rwandan genocide, truly solidified my understanding of yoga as a life practice, yoga “off the mat”, yoga as service, yoga as living love. These children continually practice yoga today, by forgiving those that killed their families and remembering that we are truly connected. I chose this word, “Kunga” so that the spirit of these kids would be carried on in all of our trainings and retreats, as a special reminder. With deep gratitude I honor my greatest yoga teachers, the orphaned children of the world, dedicating all of our Kunga programs to them.
Kunga Yoga Projects have helped us to form connections, build community & provide resources to many different organizations:
Mizero Children of Rwanda
Kigali, Rwanda
Through a combination of performances, testimonies, and multimedia presentations, the Mizero Children of Rwanda aim to creatively allow the youth of Rwanda to educate and raise awareness of the overwhelming need of 1 million orphans living now in their country as a result of the genocide of 1994. In Fall of 2007, the Mizero Orphans of Rwanda arrived in the States for the first time ever kicking off their national tour at LEAF in Black Mountain, NC. However, they had lost their primary sponsor and funding for the tour while in route from Rwanda.
Within a week’s time, we had organized a fundraising performance for the public at the Wilmington Yoga Center. The buzz throughout the week brought hundreds of people from the WIlmington community to the event, raised over $8000, and connected the children with a donor who would sponsor their schooling costs back home. We toured with these children for three months and witnessed their own understanding of yoga through dance, drums and teachings of forgiveness.
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Photography is by Peter Artemenko of Latent Design
Home of Hope Orphanage
Kerala, India
Prathyasha Bhavan (Home of Hope) provides a loving, stable home to abandoned, homeless, and neglected girls, from age 5 to 23. It is located in the south of India, in the city of Kochi (Cochin), state of Kerala. Currently, there are 60 girls in residence, and no girl in need or crisis is refused. These beautiful girls are often brought to the orphanage with ragged clothes and sadness in their eyes. They may have been forced into begging on the streets by the beggar mafia that exploits young children. Some have been purposely maimed to make them "better" beggars. Or they might be the children of commercial sex workers, runaways, children from broken families that cannot adequately care for them. Often, they have been exposed to physical and moral exploitation. These are the children of “Slumdog Millionaire”. In the care of Home of Hope, they are quickly incorporated into a loving community and their physical, educational, medical and moral needs are addressed.
In January 2009, Kristin & Loren Gulak and the Wilmington Yoga Center brought participants to the Home of Hope for the “Decorate with Love” yoga service retreat. The purpose of this retreat was to:
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•beautify the dilapidated walls in the schoolrooms
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•teach english to the girls of the orphanage
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•deliver needed medical supplies
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•bring dolls & gifts during the holidays when times can be sad for the orphans without families
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•share the gift of yoga with the girls
We also recorded the girls for a future fundraising CD fusing their voices with the children of Rwanda
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Whitehall Estates Pre-School
Negril, Jamaica
Service Work