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Community Corner

Saraswati's Yoga Joint Raises Money for Domestic Violence Awareness

 

LOCAL TEENS POSE FOR POWER AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION

 SYJ and Promindful Inc. Raise Awareness and Funds for the Domestic Violence Crisis Center’s New Teen Outreach Program Called PeaceWorks 

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(March 19, 2012) -- Norwalk- and New Canaan-based Saraswati’s Yoga Joint (SYJ) co-owner Donna Jackson, Alex Nason of Promindful, Inc., a Stamford-based non-profit group, Yasin

Khan of the PeaceWorks project and 7 Fairfield County high school students complete their 5-week teenage empowerment and yoga series that raised a $2,000 donation for PeaceWorks, a prevention education project of the Domestic Violence Crisis Center (DVCC). The DVCC plans to use the money in the community to educate at-risk teens about domestic violence.

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The mission of ProMindful is to promote mindfulness, holistic health and wellness by providing grants, scholarships, and other support to organizations and instructors (primarily in Fairfield County CT) who provide and teach mindfulness and integrative health.

PeaceWorks, a prevention education project of the DVCC, believes the prevention of violence in our society begins with the education of children. PeaceWorks provides tools for our pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade youth to help them learn how to solve conflicts peacefully and maintain healthy interpersonal relationships.

Saraswati’s Yoga Joint, being based in Fairfield County, takes every opportunity presented them to give back to the community that has so generously opened their heart and helped SYJ thrive.

Donna Jackson, co-owner of the Joint, with Tracy Bleier, explains:

Each girl who participated in the yoga series donated $30 in order to participate. SYJ, along with Promindful, Inc. then matched those donations to bring the total to $2,000. The girls, with Donna Jackson as their guide, decided where they would like the money to be donated and chose PeaceWorks.

“I feel very strongly that it is the responsibility of older women to teach and guide younger women so that they may find their power. Our life experiences and our stories ought to be shared so that the younger generation can learn from us. I feel so blessed in my life even with all the things that I either regret or that caused me pain because I think it does make us more beautiful and real and interesting. I am blessed also because of yoga and our incredible community that I have an audience like these girls who really want to be there to learn and to grow into the incredible women they have every right to be,” Donna Jackson said when asked why she facilitated the teen yoga series and why they ultimately chose PeaceWorks as their charity. “PeaceWorks was a natural choice because the whole idea behind it is helping women keep their power and to recognize that they are worthy and deserve to live meaningful lives without the threat of violence destroying their potential.”

 

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