what we do
Mission | Projects | Vision
Mission
We believe that yoga can be accessible to all and can serve as a practical, powerful, tool in creating personal change.
Our organization is dedicated to teaching life skills through the practices of yoga and meditation in order to provide youth with skills to turn over a new leaf in life, cultivating a commitment to nonviolent, compassionate engagement with themselves and their communities.
We hope to bring these practices to as many youth as possible, but even more than the number of people we reach, our priority is to create exceptional, sustainable, long-term programs.
If you are a facility interested in hosting a program supported by New Leaf, please contact us.
Projects
Because of the sensitive nature of our work, and in order to protect the identities of the youth whom we teach, we are often asked to not specifically name the host facilities where we are supporting yoga programs.
Since June 2007, our pilot project has been running with great success at a Ministry-run secure custody centre for youth located about 2.5 hours from Toronto. Here we work with male youth between the ages of 16 and 19, and currently bring classes to the facility twice each week. We have recently received approval to continue the program into its second year.
Our second project was implemented at the start of June 2008 and is shared between two facilites - King Street Detention Centre and Genest Detention Centre for Youth - in London, Ontario. We are offering weekly classes to male and female youth between the ages of 12 and 17.
We are currently in the process of implementing our third project at a Ministry-operated youth detention centre just outside of Toronto, and are in the planning stages for a 4th project with at-risk youth in the city of Toronto.
Vision
In the upcoming year, we will begin to bring more and more attention to working with at-risk youth and youth at the stage of post-incarceration as we work to build connections with organizations in our communities.
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