And every so often we’re inspired by a story of yoga for good! Sam Chelanga is a distance runner living in New Hampshire, though his roots lead him back to a remote village in Kenya where clean water is scarce and can be cause for disease.
But Chelanga wants to change that. So far he’s raised $1,500 for water filters and he’s on a mission to keep the momentum going through a charity yoga class on July 16th. In collaboration with Anna Terry, a yoga teacher, masseuse and Dartmouth’s director of integrative health, the by-donation class will be a way to give back to the local community as well as his home village by collecting donations to help purchase the water filters which cost $100 each.
Sam Chelanga | credit: Valley News
In the village of Kabarsel in Kenya’s Saimo Hills, where Chelanga grew up, residents do not have access to clean filtered water and instead turn to using water from puddles or from the rain for drinking, cooking and bathing. Unfortunately, this is a frequent cause for illness, and the nearest hospital is an hour’s drive away.
“There are a lot of things that need to be done in my village, but the first thing that makes people healthy and happy is clean water,” Chelanga told the Valley News.
Another option, drilling a well via water.org, an international non-profit, seemed too expensive at $130,000, so Chelanga decided to start small. The first thing is to have the water cleaned of germs, Chelanga said.
The yoga class will be held on July 16th at Game Set Mat, a local activewear store in Hanover, NH. It’s a smart and wonderful idea, and in the end everyone wins. We might suggest, though, that Chelanga take his mission even further online and start a crowdfunding campaign to coincide with the class so that people from all over may send donations to help Chelanga help the people of Kabarsel gain access to clean, healthy water. Perhaps a good-hearted yogi from New Hampshire might even take this on as an opportunity to do their seva. Wink. Nudge.
[Valley News via Runners World]
image via Tweed Daily News
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