One of the requirements for the Yoga Buzz 200 hour Yoga Teacher Trainees in order to receive their certificate is a Community Yoga Program Proposal. Trainees create a mock proposal to an organization or business to offer and integrate yoga as a tool for their community. The intention is to encourage trainees to research other yoga programs around the country, articulate the benefits of yoga, and use critical thinking to determine logistics, needs, funding, etc., in order to be of service to a particular community.
Trainees aren’t required to put their program into action, or even to send the proposal to an organization. However, of the first group of Yoga Buzz graduates from June 2016, a handful of them already have.
Jessie Pietroburgo is one of those graduates who has put her proposal into action, offering yoga to teens at Children’s Home Society of Missouri. Local news channel KSDK did a story on the yoga program through their Alive and Well STL series.
With a background in social work, Jessie applied for the Yoga Buzz 200-hour Teacher Training in hopes of being able to share yoga and mindfulness with youth in foster care and have been adopted. Just a few months after the completion of her training, she has already put her yoga into action. The results are inspiring.
One of Jessie’s students was skeptical about yoga when he first was told it would be offered at the Children’s Home Society. But after a few weeks in the program, he said, “Yoga is actually pretty much the number one thing that I should always pick, because it is actually a great stress-reliever. It actually works 100%.”
When we here at Yoga Buzz dreamed of creating a teacher training program, our number one mission was to empower others to lead from within, to use yoga as a tool for healing and resiliency, and to inspire others to share the teachings of yoga within communities all across the St. Louis area. Jessie’s program at Children’s Home Society is just one of the ripples that are beginning to move outwards. We can’t wait to see what waves the Yoga Buzz community will continue to make!
Interested in becoming a yoga teacher yourself? Learn more about our 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training here – the next round begins in Spring 2017.
Want to offer yoga to your community? Yoga Buzz has a team of incredibly talented and skilled teachers who are passionate about sharing this practice from a trauma-informed approach. Contact us at [email protected] to start the conversation.
