Dear friends,
In August 2010, a group of 5 queer people of color came together and articulated a desire to begin to build an LGBTQ-friendly/affirming people of color yoga community in Seattle. Our primary goal has been to create and sustain a weekly yoga class for people of color (POC) that is explicitly queer and trans friendly and is led by instructors of color. Over 150 people have participated in our classes!
In an effort to make our monthly class as accessible as possible, we ask participants to donate $0-10 to cover the cost of the instructor. This makes our yoga class exceptionally affordable as the typical rates for yoga in Seattle are often above $15 a class. Currently, we run solely on donations and we do not turn
away those who are unable to financial contribute. It is because of our core value of creating an accessible POCyoga class that we require and are requesting financial support from people in community such as yourself.
This year we made two huge moves, firstly we moved into a beautiful space in the central district of Seattle and the other huge thing for us is we have now a monthly class. When we first began this work we only had 1 class a month!
Yoga has been shown to be a valuable spiritual practice that impacts physical, mental, and emotional well-being of those who practice it.Yet, In the U.S., people of color are under-represented in yoga classes both as students and instructors. Primary reasons that people of color don’t often attend yoga classes is: cost/financial inaccessibility of yoga classes, lack of people of color in yoga
classes can make spaces feel alienating, cultural appropriation can be off-putting (especially for Hindu and/or South Asian students), lack of yoga instructors who are people of color, location, etc. For queer and trans people of color, poor folks, people of color with disabilities, and fat people of color, these barriers can also be
exacerbated by feeling that classes are not welcoming, or that instructors are not equipped to meet their unique needs. Our classes are aiming to break down some of these barriers and make yoga accessible to diverse people of color in our community.
If you have questions or would like more information about POCyoga and/or our fundraising efforts, please feel free to get in touch. I appreciate your consideration and support of this exciting community
project!
