Fancy that! First annual British teen yoga conference extends its global reach

Yoga’s popularity among today’s yout

Charlotta Martinus Courtesy of TeenYoga Foundation

h continues to expand abroad.

The TeenYoga Foundation, a charity founded by an educational consultant and yoga teacher, Charlotta Martinus in 2015 hosted its first annual Instill conference this past July 13 at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

Targeting yoga teachers, school teachers, social workers, psychologists, doctors, policy makers and young people, the one-day event aims to examine yoga’s impact on youth through the perspectives of such experts.

“The goal is to raise awareness of yoga’s impact on young people in a school setting and eventually to bring it in to the curriculum in its own right,” says Martinus via email.

With yoga’s popularity rising exponentially in the United Kingdom, “I know that six out of ten schools now offer free yoga to their students in my small town of 40,000 inhabitants,” says Martinus.

To demonstrate the benefits of yoga to kids and teens, “We have collated a few video diaries of young people talking about their experience of yoga and also have some presenting in the hall,” says Martinus.

Looking forward, “Maybe next year, we’ll extend this to a three day event with break out groups and workshops too,” says Martinus. “It would be amazing to partner with other organizations with the same goal as us and the same vision.”