We provide weekly yoga classes to inmates in the Missoula County Jail. There is one men's class a week and two women's classes a week. This program is entirely staffed by volunteers and supported by your gracious contributions. Our Mission: Our mission is to share the gifts of yoga with incarcerated individuals. We provide functional yoga instruction to students who are in the Missoula County Jail
. Functional yoga focuses on basic movements that release tension, provide pain relief and most importantly--connect students to their breath. We hope that yoga empowers the students to connect to their inner resources. And, we hope that yoga helps our incarcerated students shed their shame and hold their heads high with dignity. Yoga shows that we have options--and options are empowering. We have immediate needs for more supplies, printing resource brochures for students when they are released from jail and for trauma-informed teacher training so that we can provide classes that best serve the unique needs of our students. Our longer-term vision is to use the jail program as an introduction to yoga. We would also like to extend the program so that when students are released from jail they can continue yoga classes in the community and use yoga as a resource to help them rebuild their lives. It is our vision that yoga would be a compliment to other rehabilitative and mental health programs that might be well-suited for the individual students' needs. We hope to collaborate with community organizations that currently offer yoga, or to bring yoga classes into community facilities that work with folks after they're released from jail. What We Do: We are a group of about 22 yoga teachers who volunteer our time to teach in the jail. We have sat for the jail's volunteer training, we created an orientation program to help teachers, and we study how to best serve our students. We create a schedule and work together to provide this service to the community. The Impact: Already guards, staff and our incarcerated students are very pleased with the program. We hear glowing reports from the jail staff. Yoga has caught their attention because the incarcerated students are responding so well to it. A couple guards told us their inmates are calmer. And, when we teach we see a beautiful calmness settle over the students during meditation and yoga activities. This is truly beautiful. I believe this could assist with rehabilitation efforts and even decrease recidivism. The students are very interested in yoga. Some students feel safe and release profound emotion. Other times they are so overwhelmed with joy that they thank us profusely and ask how they can continue to participate in yoga once they leave the facility. Many times they feel elated from connecting to their body and emotions in a healthy way. Many of our students have been abused in their lives. This class is a safe space for them to reconnect with themselves. We made brochures to put in the jail lobby to connect them to free and low cost yoga, meditation and dance opportunities in the community. We're working on getting funds to print them. I would like to think the wonderful teachers and community allies who have supported this program! Masc Studios, Mill Creek Accounting and Matt Freeman, Inc. have given us valuable in-kind sponsorships. We thank you for your support! I will not name the yoga teachers here as some of them have requested anonymity. However, I thank the teachers for their compassionate contributions to this program. Without you--this wouldn't be possible. Would you like to get involved, donate to the program or just have a general question? Feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Thanks for your interest in this program.
