Giving Back

We appre­ci­ate the pow­er of the com­mu­ni­ty that allows the Lamu Yoga Fes­ti­val to thrive — it would not be a suc­cess­ful project oth­er­wise. That is why we sup­port local ini­tia­tives and give back to the beau­ti­ful com­mu­ni­ty of Lamu island! The ini­tia­tives we have sup­port­ed are Safari Doc­tors, Anidan, Shela Bright Girls Sec­ondary school and the Lamu Yoga Community.

Each year Lamu Yoga Fes­ti­val also donates dis­pos­able san­i­tary pads to Shela Bright Girls Sec­ondary school, as most of the girls can­not afford buy­ing them and there­fore lack afford­able and hygien­ic men­stru­al products

We have now expand­ed our scope to reach more girls with­in Lamu, and opt­ed for the eco-friend­ly Reusable San­i­tary Pads. Since 2020 we part­nered with Pad­Mad Social Enter­prise and we man­aged to sup­port more than 300 girls in 2020 with a pack­age of Reusable san­i­tary pads, to ensure that no girl miss­es school dur­ing her peri­od. Pad­Mad Reusable pads are biodegrad­able, sus­tain­able and long-last­ing – up to 5 years – and pro­duced local­ly in Kenya.

A month after our first Reusable San­i­tary Pads dis­tri­b­u­tion, we organ­ised a focus group dis­cus­sion with girls at the school to get their opin­ions. We chat­ted about their expe­ri­ences with reusable pads and about Men­stru­al hygiene in gen­er­al. All girls were very sat­is­fied and said the pads are com­fort­able and ben­e­fi­cial. They gave us very valu­able and detailed insight that inspired us to con­tin­ue this project. In 2021, we reached more than 1000 girls in Lamu Island with the help of Banana House and Lamu Furaha.

This year, some of the pro­ceeds of the fes­ti­val tick­et will go towards get­ting more Reusable pads and reach­ing out to more girls in Lamu and Man­da Island. We aim on reach­ing out again to more than 1,000 girls by Decem­ber 2022. To reach this goal, we are work­ing close­ly with the schools in Lamu, and have made a dis­tri­b­u­tion strat­e­gy that we believe will be effective.

Lamu Yoga Community

We believe yoga should be acces­si­ble to every­one, so we are proud to sup­port free com­mu­ni­ty yoga class­es. Africa Yoga Project teacher Fred Gwance teach­es yoga to local adults and chil­dren in Lamu Town and Shela. We now want to add anoth­er teacher who will sole­ly work with the locals as the yoga com­mu­ni­ty in Lamu is con­tin­u­ing to grow.

To help sus­tain the effort, we are using 250 KSH from each tick­et toward sup­port­ing the teacher. With your help, we hope to fund the ini­tia­tive constantly.

To sup­port, you can choose to donate 500 KHS  on your reg­is­tra­tion form. You can also leave your mats after the fes­ti­val, or bring an extra one for the young local upcom­ing yogis.

For more infor­ma­tion about our ini­tia­tives and about how you can sup­port them, please send us an email to info@lamuyoga.org.

Asante sana!