Monday, March 7, 2011

108 Sun Salutations for Comic Relief

Did any of you watch the documentary on BBC 1 last week "Famous, Rich and in The slums"?
Four celebrities spent a week living in arguably the most impoverished place on earth in the African slums of Kibera, Kenya. The documentary follows Lenny Henry, Reggie Yates, Angela Rippon and Samantha Womack who are stripped of all their possesions and are left to survive in harsh, unsanitary and frankly frightening conditions. This incredible film tells a story of abject poverty and despair that close to one million Kiberans live every day, where back breaking manual labour earns you as little as 50 pence a day, one in 5 children don't live to see their fifth Birthday and pit latrine toilets are emptied by hand into the river that runs through this 1.5 square miles of squalor. Most families struggle to earn enough to feed themselves every day, many young women turn to prostitution in exchange for food and a large percentage of children cannot afford to go to school.
Easily the most heart wrenching piece of TV I have seen in a long time and through the tears when a young woman miscarried a baby in the very basic hospital lobby and nobody batted an eye lid, I decided I needed to do something to help.
So  am calling on you to help too.
I am looking to have a sun salutation event! What do you think?
Whether you are a yoga practitioner or not, how about you come along, donate some money to a great cause and get a fantastic work out at the same time.
I am also hoping that some of my yoga teacher friends and network will be up for a share of guiding everyone through this challenge. Yes that means you, Shelley, Terri, Lucy, Marie, Julie, Laurent, Krystal...
108 salutes to the sun seems such a perfect way to raise some hope and happiness as well as some cash for a very worthy cause.
So I am looking for help....PLEASE!
Contact me and let me know how you want to support this event. If you want to participate, donate, teach, offer refreshments...You name it. I am also looking for a venue, though I do have a couple of ideas up my sleeve.
Red nose day is Friday 18th March and that seems like as good a day to do this as any, although it doesn't give us much time.
Now I don't want to hear, "But I am going to the cinema/pub/theatre/club that night!"
SHUSH!!!!
Go the next night instead.
Go the next night and celebrate the fact that you have achieved something incredible not just for an amazing cause but for yourself too.
If we could get 50 people to come along and donate a fiver even, that would be a decent chunk of money which could help save children from blindness, fight the spread of malaria and increase chances of infant survival.
Get involved and get emailing me!
shbfree@aol.com

2 comments:

  1. I'm too old and stiff to do yoga but I will donate some money. I can come and watch others sweat if that helps too.
    Dad

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