YOGA AT SCHOOL TO EDUCATE IN NON-VIOLENCE

ASIA Onlus’ initiative within Distinti ma non distanti, the Global Citizenship education project funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation. Some schools in Rome and Naples were involved, with over 100 fourth-grade children among the participants.

One hour of Yoga as part of primary school lessons. To learn from an early age to manage emotions, including the stronger ones such as anger, loss, loneliness and helplessness that can generate violence.
This is the initiative of ASIA Onlus which involved over 100 fourth-grade children in some schools in Rome and Naples, busy for one hour every week with a practice usually unknown in an ordinary public primary school.

The initiative is part of the Distinti ma non distanti project, promoted by ASIA Onlus itself and funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation to value diversity and promote social interaction through the knowledge of the universal values of Buddhist culture: empathy, interdependence and non-violence.

And it is precisely to pass on to the youngest the value of non-violence that, besides the normal lessons, the pupils were entrusted for some months to the care of professional yoga teachers, who showed the children how to take care of themselves, concentrating on sounds and on the breath while they discovered and learned to coordinate new movements.

A much appreciated experiment for the young students who, lesson after lesson, learned to overcome some simple but for them important difficulties; usually over-stimulated by the many daily activities (school, homework, sport…) the children have in fact discovered how to concentrate in their own space, keep silence, calm their body and their mind and listen to themselves.

Other activities of the project: Show cooking in Rome with chef Cristina Bowerman>>