Charlotta Martinus
In 2004, I trained as a yoga teacher and since then, I have trained over 1,500 parents, teachers, youth workers, social workers and medical professionals to deliver yoga to young people specifically in their contexts all over the world.
Alongside all my teaching, I found myself doing a lot of voluntary work around this and we set up the Teen Yoga Foundation as a charity to give structure to that dimension in 2016.
The aim is to go beyond the teacher training to support yoga for young people through research, innovation, teacher support and advice, advocacy and promotion of yoga and other activities such providing teacher training for youth workers with orphans and ex-child soldiers in Sierra Leone. Increasingly, we are looking to bring the yoga to those who can’t afford it, who are also very often those who most need the benefits it can bring.
Much of my work now focuses on the charity. In the BANES area, we have worked closely with BANES Wellbeing, Callington Road Hospital, Wesport, DHI, Penny Brohn and more recently we are joining forces with Off the Record. Further afield we have partnered with universities from different parts of the EU, Oxfam Italia, Lululemon (as their Here to Be partner) and Sport England on innovation projects bringing yoga to youth. It was heart-warming to be publicly supported by Sir Duncan Selbie in 2019, head of Public Health England and also Sir Michael Dixon, Director of the College of Medicine, who continue to support our work.
During the lockdown it was very hard for yoga teachers to continue their work, but we took Teen Yoga online with a daily “Zen Challenge” with yoga and other activities for young people. The excitement for 2021 has been the launch of the Teen Yoga Ambassador programme which aims to increase the number of adolescents doing yoga by training young people to share yoga with their peers at school, as a preventative mental health measure.
On a personal note, apart from yoga, I enjoy riding my horse, canoeing, sailing and being in Nature, especially in far flung Lochs in Scotland! I am very excited to be connecting with more vibrant, socially committed and dynamic women in Bath after 17 years of living here!