World Yoga Day is a day where the yoga teachers and schools around the world will donate their time and space to a two hour yoga session which is devoted to human rights. The class should be held from 11:00am – 1:00pm sharp, local time in each time zone, which will lead to a 24-hour yoga marathon around the world.
This is a NON-Profit prject with with NO commercial interest involved. Students attending the event will donate whatever tuition they can afford. All contributions are welcome and also students who can't pay at all – the money is important to help victims of human right violation but so is the spirit.
Found that this campaign only started in year 2007 and Germany has the most yoga teachers and schools/centers participated. This year 2009 is the first time that Malaysia participated and I only found yogaloft and yoga365 from Malaysia in the list. I couldn’t even find any participant from Hong Kong and Singapore. No wonder some of the practitioners yet to aware of this meaningful event.
This idea was originated from Germany by a film director cum yoga teacher living in Berlin, named Samira. One Saturday morning after a long night with little sleep, Samira was counting milk bubbles in her Cappuccino when the idea for World Yoga Day popped out of nowhere. When the fabulous Sandra, Bjoern and Lei joined her the idea started to walk. The milk bubble count was 6844.
Sandra is a freelancing interaction designer and graphic design teacher living and working in Berlin, Germany. Of course she's an enthusiastic yogi too and always searching for projects that actually do make a difference.
Björn is an IT professional who also living in Berlin. He did his very best to set up this accessible website for Samiras great idea of a WORLD YOGA DAY for charity. Let this union of yogis become an energetic swarm and in 2008 Björn became an enthusiastic and certified Tantra Practitioner.
Below are the past and current World Yoga Day:
21st Jan 2007 (Sun)
In 2007, they joined forces with Medica mondiale (www.medicamondiale.org) to contribute to the elimination of violence against women and girls in Afghanistan.
Donation collected so far: US$19,731 / €14,657
3rd Feb 2008 (Sun)
While China is fast developing into a global super-power, the human rights situation in China is still cause for concern. Therefore, in 2008 World Yoga Day decided to support AI's Human Rights for China campaign
Donation collected so far: US$37,085.45 / €23,394.22
8th Feb 2009 (Sun)
This year they like to support people in Zimbabwe. The country has been deteriorated in the 28 years regime under Robert Mugabe and brought about massive suffering to its population.
For further details, you may visit their website at http://www.worldyogaday.net
