Girls Determined
- By onthemat
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- 06 Apr, 2016
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Who are these girls? As I’ve prepared for my time teaching yoga, I’ve asked questions not only about the history of Burma, but more specifically the history of women and girls in Burma. Part of our mission in teaching yoga is to empower them to be strong, confident, and aware of their bodies and voice. Aware of their ability to choose.
Labor and sex trafficking is global problem in many countries, but it is especially prevalent in the countries I plan to visit: Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. In seeking answers to my questions, I found Girl Determined whose mission is to educate adolescent girls about their opportunities to grow their access to education, health knowledge, participation in decision-making and personal development. The goal is to enable the girls living in Myanmar with skills and information to give them a chance to advocate for change on issues that directly affect them.
I was surprised when I read on their website, “ Ask just about any teenage girl in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital and she will tell you that she would rather have been born a boy .” Why is this?
“ Myanmar’s moment is now. Myanmar is a microcosm of the world’s most pressing issues facing girls and women. Crises of environment, urban stress, religious strife, and gender-based discrimination have inspired radical responses in how to empower girls who must contend with the obstacles to leading fulfilling lives.” What’s interesting is this could be said of many developing countries, and it could be said of boys as well as girls, but this is about the girls since I will be in the all female monastery with them.
Girl Determined brings together adolescent girls from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. At the core of Girl Determined programs are the Circles, which are weekly, structured, after school peer groups that span two academic years. About half way through the first year girls are proud of being a girl .”
How can Marni, Wendy, Carly and I replicate some of these teachings, through the broadest definition of yoga, for the girls and women we will meet in the monastery? That is one of my goals in teaching these beautiful girls and women of the Buddhist monastery, as I learn who they are.
[Novice Buddhist nuns wave as a cavalcade of Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi drives past on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, Sunday, April 1, 2012. Myanmar held a landmark election Sunday that was expected to send Suu Kyi into parliament for her first public office since launching her decades-long struggle against the military-dominated government. (AP Photo)]
On The Mat Yoga Blog
“There is a light in the core of
our being that calls us home—one that can only be seen with closed eyes; We can
feel it as a radiance in the center of our chest. This light of loving
awareness is always here, regardless of our conditioning. It does not matter
how many dark paths we have traveled or how many wounds we have inflicted or
sustained as we have unknowingly stumbled toward this inner radiance. It does
not matter how long we have sleepwalked, seduced by our desires and fears. This
call persists until it is answered, until we surrender to who we really are.
When we do, we feel ourselves at home wherever we are. A hidden beauty reveals
itself in our ordinary life. As the true nature of our Deep Hear is unveiled,
we feel increasingly grateful for no reason—grateful to simply be.”
—John J. Prendergast, PHD, The Deep Heart
Seems like it’s been rainy,
windy, dreary for eons. Which may have helped us shelter inside a bit more. I
remember reading years and years ago in a Seth book that weather can be
influenced, and even created by mass human emotion. Why not? We are far more powerful
than we currently acknowledge, and science is beginning to validate many
phenomena that had seemed inconceivable before. Those seemingly endless days of
“bad” weather seemed congruent with the emotional tone of covid her in New
England. And now SUN! Glorious, warming, invigorating, hope-filled Sun! Today I
will be outside basking and gardening and thanking. And I’m sure the whole
neighborhood, and most of New England will go outside, stand with our faces to
the sun and breathe a huge healing breath of joy. And maybe the collective
energy of that will resonate out across the word as a promise of brighter days
to come.
