Yoga for South African school children – in pictures
Yoga4Alex is an initiative offering free yoga classes to schoolchildren living in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, with the goal of giving students the tools to cope with stress and anxiety, and to help them achieve focus in their schoolwork and everyday life
-
Alexandra township resident and yoga teacher Dipuo Smith stands among the shacks that are home for most people living in the Johannesburg township. Smith is one of five new local yoga teachers who are being taught by the NGO Yoga4Alex.
-
Smith performs a backbend at the Minerva secondary school. The class aims to bring the ancient Indian spiritual practice of Kundalini Yoga to the schoolchildren.
-
Smith helps a student with the full wheel pose.
-
Minerva students try the upward facing dog.
-
-
Children learn to sit and meditate with their fingers together in a ‘mudra.’ The aim of Yoga4Alex is to help students reach their personal goals by bringing stability into their lives.
-
Township resident and yoga teacher Sindiso Moyo demonstrates the plough pose. Moyo, who was born in Zimbabwe, is one of the five teachers being taught by Yoga4Alex.
-
Children meditate in class. Alexandra – or Alex as it is known – is one of the main townships on the edges of Johannesburg and was built in the early 1900s to house non-white residents. It suffers from high unemployment and poverty.
Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
-
Children lie in ‘savasana’ or ‘corpse’ pose at the end of their afternoon yoga class.
Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
-
-
Moyo, centre, walks to class with fellow Yoga4Alex teacher Bongekile Nguza, left, and friends.
Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
-
Smith performs a handstand.
Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
-
Nguza stands in a tree pose. The results of the yoga on the children of Alex are believed to have been hugely beneficial.
Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
-
Moyo hangs out with schoolchildren near his family’s shack in Alex. The yoga classes have apparently been instrumental in helping the children become calm and centred.
Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
-
-
Children trying to emulate the yoga poses.
-
Smith stands in the ‘dancer’ pose. She hopes one day to start her own yoga studio in Alex and is also aiming to help the elderly township residents with her yoga knowledge.
Photograph: Kim Ludbrook/EPA
