On this episode I am joined by Kayoko Mitsumatsu. Kayoko is the founder of Yoga Gives Back. In the last fifteen years, Yoga Gives Back has spread globally with 150 Ambassadors who are yoga teachers sharing YGB’s mission with their communities as well as raising funds with their events. They support women and children in India through scholarships and micro-loans. They are working with the pad project to help make sustainable menstrual products readily available and build a digital center.
YGB currently has an online auction filled with amazing travel opportunities, yoga classes, wellness products and more. It is currently expected to close on December 15th. You can bid on items here: Gala Auction 2022 (auctria.com)
YogaGivesBack – To Mobilize the Global Yoga Community
The Pad Project Launched at NGO NISHTHA in West Bengal! - YouTube
Yoga Gives Back | Facebook
Yoga Gives Back (@yogagivesback) • Instagram photos and videos
Filled Up Cup - Unconventional Self Care for Modern Women
Ashley (@filledupcup_) • Instagram photos and videos
On this episode I am joined by Kayoko Mitsumatsu. Kayoko is the founder of Yoga Gives Back. In the last fifteen years, Yoga Gives Back has spread globally with 150 Ambassadors who are yoga teachers sharing YGB’s mission with their communities as well as raising funds with their events. They support women and children in India through scholarships and micro-loans. They are working with the pad project to help make sustainable menstrual products readily available and build a digital center.
YGB currently has an online auction filled with amazing travel opportunities, yoga classes, wellness products and more. It is currently expected to close on December 15th. You can bid on items here: Gala Auction 2022 (auctria.com)
YogaGivesBack – To Mobilize the Global Yoga Community
The Pad Project Launched at NGO NISHTHA in West Bengal! - YouTube
Yoga Gives Back | Facebook
Yoga Gives Back (@yogagivesback) • Instagram photos and videos
Filled Up Cup - Unconventional Self Care for Modern Women
Ashley (@filledupcup_) • Instagram photos and videos
Welcome to the Filled Up Cup podcast. We are a different kind of self-care resource. One that has nothing to do with bubble baths and face masks, and everything to do with rediscovering yourself. We bring you real reviews, honest experiences, and unfiltered opinions that will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, leave you with a filled up cup.
Ashley:I am very excited today. I have the founder of Yoga Gives Back Joining Me. Welcome Kyoko.
Kayoko:Thank you so much.
Ashley:Can you let everybody who maybe isn't familiar with Yoga Gives Back? Tell us a little bit about it?
Kayoko:Yes. Thanks so much again Ashley for having me. And so yoga gives back. I studied this organization just a yoga student. I'm not a yoga teacher, but I was just benefiting so much from the practice of yoga. I wanted to give back, I am a documentary filmmaker as a profession, and I was starting to practice yoga in 2007 in Los Angeles where I live, and I was just feeling so great as many of you know, how you feel after the class of yoga. You feel so happy and blessed and then so I thought, I was 47 at that time, and I thought, what do I do with myself? I was so happy and healthy, you know, like, what can I do with this abundance of energy? So I started talking to my friends and teachers and long story short, we create this mission. That many people felt that you know, to mobilize yoga practitioners worldwide with their gratitude and to channel that gratitude into empowering India's women and children to create sustainable lives. So we are aware that yoga comes from India and we are. Being blessed with that gift, but there is huge poverty issues and especially women and children most affected in that country. So we wanted to give back in that way. In the last 15 years, we just came together with sheer gratitude for this gift of yoga and we've reached out to 30 countries around the world and 150 ambassadors of yoga teachers singing communities, all these leaders or ambassadors who reach out to their communities and do fundraising, we've been doing a lot of global, like online gathering with these leaders. That's been great. We have been able to empower more than 2,400 women and children. So we provide them with micro loans, especially for underserved women. We give early education for young girls and orphans. And last few years we have been able to give quite a bit of medical and food emergency assistance during Covid. We also created five year scholarship for high education, which provide scholarship so that the disadvantaged young people can get college degrees. We are seeing hundreds of people now graduating with degrees. In the last 15 years, we've been supported by hundreds of volunteers and sponsors around the world, and we also have been invited to international yoga festivals in Hong Kong, London, many cities in the world, we also created our Humanitarian Namaste Award which are presented every year at the gala for the first five years we did it in person, but last three years it's been online. The recipients, include Mallika Chopra to David Lynch, Alanis Morissette, Jack Kornfield, Trudy Goodman, the PAD Project and also. Nobel Peace laureate, Dr. Mohamed Yunus who is the father of Microfinancing this year we are very honored. We just present this award to Christie Turlington Burns who, inspired so many people with the yoga. She was on the cover of time Magazine, Vogue. She also wrote an amazing book about yoga, but she's now heading her own organization called Every Mother Counts since her complications during her first childbirth. So she realized how many actually women are dying At the time of childbirth around the world, so she created her nonprofit organization called Every Mother Counts. So I interviewed her she's just amazing woman, and anybody who is interested, it's still available as a replay so you can watch it. So how we do all this work in India. So we work with three non-governmental organizations as partners in India. Two are in Karnataka, which is near Bangalore and Mysore area, like orphanage girls home, and also in a very poor villages. We provide education scholarship for the youth and. Another big organization is in West Bengal, which is in Calcutta area on the west side of India. That's where we provide about 500 mothers with micro financing and young girls. We are creating digital center for young girls. We also are creating the PAD project that I will talk about and here is a little bit of a success story that I want to share. First thing we want to unlock mother's dreams, right? So first trip to India for me was in 2007 and I met this skinny mom who just received microfinancing, and she told me, I don't want my children to live like me, which is very harsh, sad comment. But I realize ever since that meeting, all the mothers I met, everybody said the same thing because their lives have been. Miserable though they had never had opportunity for education or respect in the community. So with this microfinancing, she got the sewing machine and her financial situation got better in the family and her two sons they wanted to become doctors, both of them because that's their mother's dream. So eldest son Guad in this red shirt who couldn't speak a word of English when I first met him. Hes today. Emergency doctor in Bangalore and we supported his education until he became a doctor. Here is his amazing message. with all of your. I'm here today because of you. When I was in 15, I met Kayoko and Yoga gives back. I was a seed at that time. So you are the one who pulled a water who has been a sunlight and was nurtured a small seed to this tree today. So this tree is now able to, to give shelter to thousands of people. So it's all cause of you people. So he really speaks so beautifully every time. And thanks to his success, we created this scholarship for higher education program. This is another girl who received this scholarship in 2014 in a rural area of Calcutta, west Bengal. And she comes from Muslim family San. Where girls still are forced to marry around the age of 15, because despite the fact that it is illegal, that's the practice even today. So she was very happy when she received that scholarship because she can continue her education. But since then, her father and her brothers started physically. Abusing her because she would not get married. She would not give up education, and her mom always stayed up by her side. And long story short, she graduated with bachelors degree and she's now the breadwinner for the family.
Ashley:Must be so beautiful to be able to see it come full circle like that, to see sort of what you were able to start Yeah. And what it grew into and what an impact it makes for so many families.
Kayoko:Exactly. And thank you for saying that. That's why I continue to film the stories like this. Every time I go. So girl like San today, we are funding more than 400 youths in the vulnerable families. So you can see what the impact these young people can bring to the families and to the community. They really are the role models in this very backward poor villages where, you know, girls are not supposed to study even, up to high school. So here is a quick snapshot how we grew in the last 15 years. So I really started counting how many people we are helping in 2011, and it was only 55 mothers with microfinancing. And then I used to dream wow, that it would be great if I can get to 1000, which we did in 2017. We surpassed 1000 lives. Including 210 this scholarship students, and last year with all the support from around the world, we added another 1000 lives. So we are now reaching out to 2,400 women and children, and we want to continue. This trajectory. However, the pandemic really deepened the socioeconomic divide as so many other countries, especially in the developing countries. So the child marriage is happening for 1.5 million girls a year of which is the highest in the world, and women's income fell to one fifth of the men's. Sexual assault is happening every 15 minutes. You hear horrendous rape situation, you know, news sometimes in the media, but it's actually happening every 15 minutes and it's the worst In the last six years, it's getting really worse and 10 million girls are supposed to drop out from secondary education. So how can we Challenge these hardships. So one of the things we really trying to fundraise is to create women's digital center in West Bengal because during pandemic I learned the girls were studying like this, you know, sharing one mobile form from somebody's family and catch up their studies. At high school, college level, so you can imagine how difficult that was. And women, we support with micro loans, they have very small businesses like these, stitches and making sarees or you know, Clay pots and stuff like that. They are very talented artisans, but they're also lost income because market was locked down with Covid so only if they had a computer center with computers, internet access and skills training, girls could continue their studies and as well as learning skills to be eligible for better job opportunities. The women of microfinancing, they can get into eCommerce. So eCommerce can provide much bigger income opportunities for them. So one center with hundred desktop computers will provide minimum 5,000 girls and women. Opportunities like this. The other project we are pushing is the PAD Project. Have you heard of the PAD Project?
Ashley:I haven't heard of it, but I know even say in Western countries, the cost involved with people to be able to have these sort of products. not having to stay home if you don't have a pad or a tampon or a cup.
Kayoko:Exactly. Exactly. So if that's the case in the US or in the developed countries, you can imagine that poor countries like India, when I first went there, I learned that the girls and women are using rags for menstruation because they had no access to sanitary pads. Or they didn't have money, right? So that was also not very good. Hygienically, that complicated. A lot of gynecological issues. So this is a project where we work with the PAD Project who actually won the Oscar documentary award in 2019. They're the project team in Los Angeles from high school. So we work with them and we got two machines. To our NGO partner this year, early in April. So 20 women are being trained to produce their own sanitary pads. Our goal is to grow this into, like self sustaining business so that they can sell these pads as well as provide access for young girls and women in the village to have affordable, biodegradable. Sanitary napkins that will help their health. The girls drop out of school because there are no toilets and, like you said women stay home because of menstruation. Girls drop out of school. That's the really big reason for stopping education. So this is another big project and here is a final little message. Namaste this is Reunalta I work as a staff nurse and I'm very, very glad that I can do this through this video. I would like to thank Yoga Gives back for your vision, for your support, and for being there when I was in need. Thank you. YGB You are, you are helping me to reach my goal and namaste I have two daughters myself and coming to realize the struggles that women and children, particularly girls in India face in a daily way to have clean water, to have enough to eat, particularly young girls being forced into young marriages where they won't get to go to school and create a life for themselves. Yoga is the foundation of my spiritual practice. It's how I make my living. So how dare I not link arms with women and mothers in India to help create a better life for their daughters? Please join me in helping yoga gives back and the mission that is so important there. So these young girls have a chance at a good life. So finally, I just wanted to quickly show you. So our mantra is for the cost of one class, you can change your life. So you can spend like two these days, like$30 or$40 for yoga class or$200 for yoga pants, but that money can give a girl high education for a year..$108 can provide computer internet access with training for girl.$50 a month can provide high education for two girls.$10 a month can provide microloan for one group of 10 mothers. So these are not big. Huge money when you think about how much you spend dinner or something like that these days. So we just want to highlight how one class fee can really change your life. And we've proven that in the last 15 years in India with all the support we receive. So our really impact goal is reduce the gender and socioeconomic divide and. become disaster proof because last two years we've seen how the pandemic can completely turn every everybody's life In a community like this, you know, vulnerable communities upside down, and also the climate change is hitting them very hard. So cyclone is worse now and the flood is worse, so, You know, infrastructure support is very important too. So thank you so much for watching this and I hope you got some idea of what we do.
Ashley:I definitely did, and I think sometimes people know that they wanna get involved and they don't know how to get involved. So I love the breakdown of, for the cost. Less than two Starbucks, in theory a month. You could help women essentially get a micro loan to be able to, have those long term impacts for their family. Now, to take it back, if somebody isn't familiar even with a micro loan, can you kind of explain what that is and how they're given to the people in the community.
Kayoko:Yeah. So microfinancing or micro Loan began very famous when Dr. Muhammad Yunus received Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. So the idea is that when you think about it if you're poor, you don't have collateral, you can never get a bank loan when you think about it, right? But, so Dr. Yunus decided to give small amount of money for the poorest people in Bangladesh where he lived. So that these women, for example, they're making bamboo, chairs, but they were always borrowing money from somebody and they always have to pay back interest. So all the profit they made from selling bamboo chairs, they all went back to the middle man or sharks where they took all the interest and so on, so they were never supposed to get out of poverty. So micro Loan. They give the money directly to these women and there is no interest to begin with. There was no interest at that time initially. and there was no middle man, so they can get all the interest to themselves and pay back the money, this really helped millions of poor people, to come out of their vicious cycle of poverty.
Ashley:I would assume in some of these countries, women may not even have the ability, even if they had say collateral, they wouldn't have the ability to just necessarily go to a traditional bank without a husband or a father or some sort of male to vouch. Yeah. So potentially in some of these situations, they wouldn't be eligible for any sort of loan. So I'm sure that the microfinancing made it so that they even had the ability.
Kayoko:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A lot of women we support, they've never even been to the bank. So, you know, in the poor villages, that was the first thing our NGO partner had to train them. Don't be shy. So that's why they make a group. And Dr. Yunus's idea is this is genius idea that he made. Women's group first, like five to 10 women, and they become mutually responsible if somebody defaults the payment, other people cover. So it becomes like a group effort and like where we support also women go to the bank together, so nobody's. You know, frightened or shy, but as a group, they'll stand and they'll open the bank account together. So it becomes like a self-help group and a peer support group too. I've seen also the benefit of these microloan groups are, That they really help mentally each other because there is still a lot of domestic violence and sexual abuse at home where they had to stay home and they had to deal with it, but on their own, even if they depression or nobody was talking to them. But now they go out and do job, like make candles or whatever they need to do as a group business. So during that time, they start talking about their help, their problems at home. They are so powerful. Many women are so powerful that if there is a domestic violence that doesn't, get solved, they'll take it to police or local offices, government offices, and they'll pressure the husbands and they stop it. So it's not just a financial impact that this microfinancing creates.
Ashley:No, it's really that community and it's something that I'm not even sure if he would've realized maybe the impact of really the ripple effect of all of that. That it isn't as simple, like you said, of just giving money. It really is now we're building a community for them. We're building the education of them, knowing how to run the business and having that confidence, because I think worldwide, too many times women are underestimated or pushed aside, or we're just not valued to the extent that we should be as equals in all of our societies, but it's really giving them that, that you don't have to be stuck in your circumstances, that there are other choices, even if it doesn't feel like that there is.
Kayoko:Exactly. Exactly. It's just a matter of having opportunity.
Ashley:Now congratulations. Yoga Gives back is 15 years old this year. Are there any special celebrations that you have planned for your anniversary?
Kayoko:So we just had a online global gala where we awarded our namaste award, humanitarian award to Christie Turlington Burns. As part of a global gala, we are now running a silent auction, which goes until December 15th. And so this is something that, it's like holiday shopping that is not just for yourself, but also the money you bid. helps as you can see, women and children so much. So we are doing that. And of course this is the end of year, so we are really trying to raise funds to create this digital center and into next year the PAD project,
Ashley:which I will put all of the information about how people can purchase and put their bids in on the gallon, the auction as well in the show notes. What. Do vision is next for yoga Gives back. I know your goal was that you wanted to help a thousand people. What is the next goal that you hope to reach?
Kayoko:Yes. One of the biggest goal is also to reach to 1 million Yogis So there's supposed to be 300 million people enjoying this practice of yoga. Either it's physical or meditation or whatever way. But it's just a fraction. 1 million people join our campaign and just imagine if everybody. gives one dollar that's$1 million dollars. Everybody give$10. That 10 million, right? India's population is humongous. So we can continue to. The need is endless. So we can do so much more. And so that's another big goal. In the next five years or so, we would really like to reach to 1 million Yogis. Really get involved. You know, we came this far, we haven't really calculated exactly how many, I think it's thousands of people now, but not 1 million yet.
Ashley:That's a great goal to have. Yeah. You currently have a 150 ambassadors. Mm-hmm. Is that something that people can ongoing apply to be a part of in your ambassadorship growing, or is that kind of at 150.
Kayoko:No. We continue to invite leaders in the yoga community. As I said, it can be spiritual practice or physical practice, whatever. But if they're interested in our mission and we ask them to host at least one fundraising event per year. To share a mission with their community. That's how we grew over the last 15 years. It's been like words of mouth. I was just back in Japan where I'm from and I was talking to one teacher and he was very excited about this. He brought another teacher who is very very established, but I didn't know them right. And so, Things like that in a words of mouth. And then also one of my team members, Julie she knows a lot of yoga teachers in Ashtanga community and she brought somebody from Hong Kong and now he's traveling all over the world. She became ambassador and he just sent a nice message and said, I'm finally doing my first fundraiser in South Africa next February. That's probably our 31st country because we never had any community event in South Africa. So it's like that, there are a lot of teachers moving around the world, so we ask them to take us with you,
Ashley:I love the fact that I feel like sometimes we get so caught up in our own country, in our own country's issues and things like that, and I love the fact that you are potentially in 31 countries where it really is that messaging of we all are one, we all need to work together and make different impacts. If we do work more as a team, collectively things get done faster. We can spread that message. We can really realize that we are, more alike than we are different. Mm-hmm. and our countries collectively have so many of the same issues. So if we have the ability to help and to, meet people and connect in that way. I just think it's so fantastic.
Kayoko:Yeah. Thank you for emphasize that part, our connection, our oneness and unity all come, you know, that's the goal of yoga anyways. I don't know if, do you practice yoga?
Ashley:Actually, I don't. On a regular basis. I have before. What drew you into yoga originally?
Kayoko:I'm a documentary filmmaker as a profession, but I just always liked physical exercise. So somebody told me to take a class, my girlfriend took me in and I just kind of liked it. So I tried about two years, different types of kundalini, ashtanga, vinyasa, all sorts of different kind. I just got so hooked at once. I started ashtanga yoga which is a very rigorous daily practice. But also I was fortunate that my first teacher taught me about philosophy of yoga from early on. So I realized from very early on that I was taught that Asana, which is a physical practice, is just a tiny. Piece of big tradition of yoga and big tradition is a very spiritual discipline in the practice that we try to unite, yoga means to yoke, to unite our small self to our big self. So we strive, we in discipline and train ourselves. To that higher goal. Right? So, then we realized, supposed to, we realized that the oneness of the people, we are all one and we are all united. To feel that and to act towards that oneness is what I understand so far is the goal of yoga. So what yoga gives back does is to really express and actually. Act upon that big goal of yoga.
Ashley:I love the fact that you were able to find it as a physical practice, but also be able to lean into that and really create yoga, gives back and really, Put your money where your mouth is in a sense that it wasn't just that you were going through the motions, that you really did create this impact that people can benefit physically from, but really mentally and spiritually as well.
Kayoko:Yeah, that is the biggest part. That's why like it changed my life. You know, yoga often says that it changes your life, but I was a filmmaker making, my living as a documentary filmmaker as almost 30 years. But once I started Yoga Give back 15 years ago, first. Eight years I was doing like, as a volunteer and I still had my income from yoga gift my production as a documentary filmmaker. The organization got so big and I felt so responsible and also priority shifted it within me that. My profession as a filmmaker became less important. I just really felt this is my calling and this is my life mission. So I switched and I was fortunate. My husband supported and my parents supported in that transition two years because I lost income. But I learned that if I fall apart, this organization can't keep going. This has been a big lesson for me, how to run nonprofit organization and Try to grow it. Well, and that
Ashley:must have been a lot of pressure and a lot of stress to kind of feel like everything was all on your shoulders. Have you found that as it's grown, that that stress has sort of gone away a little bit? Or is it still very much on the forefront?
Kayoko:To be honest, I think it's never gone. When we grow a little bit then we want to do more. So it's never ending. But I've been listening audiobook recently, but you know, bhagavad gita is one of the you know, everybody who studies yoga reads it, you know, it's a one of the source of yogic philosophy, right? It talks about how your, you just. Do your action without thinking about fruit of your action. And Gandhi says it in the best way. That full effort is full victory. I don't know what it is, but it can be extremely stressful sometimes, at the end of the day, I always feel like all I can do is my best and I do my best. I put a hundred or 1000%, and this is my 24 7 job, or like my mission. So it doesn't even feel like a job, so I just don't, worry about the result, fundraising goal and stuff like that, but, I don't think, I'm so worried at the end of the day, if it's falling apart, you know, we can sell this and that. I can sell my car and there are ways to survive, but I somehow don't think pessimistically about the whole thing because last 15 years without any strategic business plan or anything. We came this far. I never thought we'll reach to 30 countries and we can help 2,400 women and children and really see the difference we have made in the these people's lives. So I think that has given me some confidence maybe.
Ashley:Absolutely. I think once you find your real passion, like you said, it doesn't feel like work. I know I'm the type of person that. I will take on so much that when it falls on your shoulders, it almost becomes like a stress of delegating or a stress of that responsibility instead of it being like, I wanna grow it so that we can help, it's more like that you just don't wanna take it on, like you said, in a pessimistic way or a negative way, so that it feels like something that you know that you're not taking care of yourself too.
Kayoko:Yeah, exactly. And also I have to share you with you that the importance of having colleagues, volunteers, ambassadors, sponsors, Who continued to email me and say like, okay, how about this? And you know, let's do this. Just hearing that this guy suddenly said, oh, I'm planning now one in South Africa. You know, like, that makes me really feel good and like, feel supported. I think that feeling, being feeling the support of the community is very important and very inspiring and empowering for me.
Ashley:It must be the fact that somebody is like thinking about your vision and how they can spread it and share it. I think it is one of those things that, we do wanna help others as much as possible. So to wake up with that goal in mind when you get out of bed in the day, I just don't think anything beats that.
Kayoko:Yeah, it's true. I think we were born to help others, That makes us feel the best. Right.
Ashley:Well, and it really goes back to even what we were talking about with the women building communities to be able to go to the bank together. It's like at the end of the day, that's really all what we want. We want a community, we want a village. We wanna support system to know that we aren't alone and that we do have people that we can rely on in that connection. I can just imagine, the last two years again, in. Western country where we have access to, you know, DoorDash or Amazon or all of these other things. I can just imagine for countries that didn't have that. Yeah. What that isolation and what that fear must have felt like for them.
Kayoko:That's a really good point because during our online gala two weekends ago we invited our scholarship girl students from Poor Village in Mysore, and she shared that she had to skip a meal. So that her parents don't worry about, you know, three meals a day because they were in such a financial stress situation but she never gave up education because she had a scholarship, but she didn't have a mobile phone. When she said, I sometimes had to skip a meal so that my parents don't worry. But she continued education. And then she didn't look miserable. She was with smile and very strong, like resilient, you know, hopeful face. That gives us a hope, and the inspiration, that little money. We are not asking millions of dollars from each person. You know, we are not asking you to get a loan. we are just asking you to give a class, one class fee, or one yoga pants, something like that. You know,$50, a hundred dollars, that can change somebody's life. So completely. That is so unbelievably empowering.
Ashley:And to think like for the one example where the gentleman had become a doctor. Yeah. Like your$50 or$10 really could save how many other lives. And those lives could be people that end up saving other people's lives or the great thinkers of our generation. I just don't know that we would ever really fully understand what the ripple effect is of all of those positivity. Kind of linking together.
Kayoko:Yeah, that's a great point because I am always inspired to listen to these young students who. After they get college degrees or even during in college, they all say like, oh, once I get a college degree and get a good job, I want to support my family and community and help poor, young children to get education. I never heard anybody say like, I want to buy a house. Of course they want to buy a house probably, but their first thing they say, and it's not just because we are asking them, I know it's coming from their heart. They've gone through so much with their poverty and gender discrimination, so on. So when they know that this opportunity should not be taken for granted and they can't, they want to share this with next generation, other girls, other children, and that's so beautiful.
Ashley:It really is, and it's one of those things that I think can be easy to maybe take for granted in North America the idea that women are just supposed to, get married and have babies, is just such a insane plot that that's exactly still the narrative. I feel like unfortunately that part is rolling back a little bit in all countries. Yeah. But it's so. Eye opening to really consider the statistics for uneducation and for sex trafficking and for children expecting to be wives and all of these things that I almost wish that the outrage was as widespread and stays in the headlines. I think we recently heard about a fashion house that made a really horrific choice in their advertising practices, and people were all up in arms about it, but it's like in the real world, this happens all the time. I just want maybe the outrage to be more common or for people to talk about it more.
Kayoko:It's very unfortunate that the media doesn't talk about it. That's one of my jobs, you know, to continue to share the stories of real, people and real voices, right? Because otherwise we are just flooded with, same kind of, main media stuff and the consumerism, and we forget what really is most important as a human being to do, like help each other understand each other and being interested. Being indifferent is like not an option. You have to be interested in learning about others.
Ashley:I think that's so beautiful about the fact that people can actually see the examples of the real people. Cuz I think sometimes the statistics get lost in the fact that they are real people and real women and real children that we're talking about. Yeah. And so when we can see the faces and we can see the success stories, it really. Almost makes you stop and think, oh yeah, that actually is a person and, really help people wanna be more involved because I think it does sometimes seem like, oh,$10 and you can't see the impact, or you can't see where it's going. It kind of gets lost in translation a little bit.
Kayoko:Yeah. That's what I do. I've spent 30 years making documentary films and really worked hard. I'm so grateful that I've done that because now I can use that skills for little filmmaking, for yoga gives back. So you can see all my little films about all these people we support. Under Ygb Films on my website, yoga Gives Back and I think it's a very unique tool that we have now. For so many years I have so many footage that I need to edit. That's the problem. I don't have time, but we have stories after stories.
Ashley:I love the fact that you were able to incorporate that skill set into Yoga Gives Back, cuz I think that that probably makes such a big impact.
Kayoko:Yeah, it's true. It's really true because just imagine I didn't have any footage about that little boy who became a doctor. I have about seven minute video about his life, like couple of series since he was young. I just kept filming. So we are going back in India in January, so I'm gonna film more because we now have new projects and you never. How this is gonna turn out in five years, right? So it's very exciting.
Ashley:When people are looking for you online, can they find the examples that we've shown today on your website? and can they also find them on your social media channels?
Kayoko:Yes. So if you go to yoga gives back we have a lot of tabs, but one of them is Ygb Films. That's where you find our stories as films or you can just check our work. Under our work. We list our different programs there and also social media. We are very active in Instagram and Facebook especially, and a little bit LinkedIn also. So please follow us because. Especially like in January I'll be in India, so I'll be posting a lot from there too. But on daily basis, we post a lot every day.
Ashley:Well, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. Can you remind people again the gala dates? When does it start and when does it end?
Kayoko:It's already open. At the moment, we are ending December 15th. We have about 40 plus amazing, like luxurious travel to clothing, to yoga mats to self retreat in Thailand, all sorts of amazing stuff. And also a lot of meditation or yoga classes by top ambassadors. So these are all donated by our sponsors and ambassadors. You shop and you bid and that money. You get something and then also helps women and children in India. So it's a win-win situation.
Ashley:Thank you again for having this conversation and I really appreciate meeting you
Kayoko:thank you so much, Ashley, for having me.
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