Celebrating The Women of YAMA Foundation 慶祝 YAMA 基金會的女成員

In case you missed it, our Founder and Executive Director, Hersha Chellaram was recently nominated and shortlisted for the American Chamber of Commerce, Women of Influence Award: Best Changemaker in Sport. Competition was fierce between the three nominees: Samantha Feausi, Tricia Yap, and Hersha. But in our eyes, Hersha wins everytime. 
如果您錯過了我們YAMA 的創辦始人兼執行董事 Hersha Chellaram 最近被提名併入圍＂美國商會最具影響力女性獎：體育界最佳變革者＂。今屆三位被提名者之間的競爭非常激烈：Samantha Feausi、Tricia Yap 和 Hersha。但在我們眼裡，Hersha永遠勝出。 

This got me thinking about how we embrace women’s empowerment at YAMA Foundation (YAMA) To be clear, we aren't thumping raging rampant feminists.  We are an open and diverse group of individuals who are trained in yoga, yoga therapy and art therapy, or another similar discipline.
這讓我想起我們如何在 YAMA 基金會 (簡稱YAMA) 支持女性賦權。需弄清楚的是，我們並不是激進的女權主義者，而是一個豁達和多元化的團體，接受過瑜伽、瑜伽療法和藝術療法或其他類似學科專業的培訓。

YAMA  is proud to be a charitable organization led by women. Our staff and teachers come from different backgrounds and abilities. Some of us have families, some are artists, some from sporting backgrounds and others from corporate. We all adore what we do in our respective fields – let that be known. Yet, we all share a common belief that wellness and art should be made accessible to all. Our fundamental vision is:= “All people have the fundamental right to feel good in their bodies, peaceful in their minds, live colourful and rewarding lives and be part of a caring community.” YAMA not only makes wellbeing accessible for their programme recipients, but also for the staff as well.
YAMA以成為由女性領導的慈善組織而感到自豪。 我們的員工和導師來自不同的背景和能力。 當中的一些人有家庭、有藝術家、體育背景，甚至來自企業界。大家需知道的重點是 — 我們都熱愛自己在各自領域所做的事情， 然而，我們都有一個共同的信念，那就是身心健康和藝術應該讓所有人都能接觸到。 我們的基本願景是：“所有人都有基本的權利，讓自己的身體感覺良好，頭腦平靜，過上豐富多彩、有回報的生活，成為關愛社羣的一分子。”　YAMA不僅讓他們的項目受益者得到福祉，所有員工都能獲得同等看待。

It is a common theme amongst society that only the affluent and able-bodied folks can afford to indulge in therapy or self-care. This is a bias that we are trying to break down. 
現今社會都沉浸著一個意識，就是只有富裕和體格健全的人才有資格享受治療或自我護理。 這是我們試圖打破的一種偏見。

Hersha founded YAMA based on two personal experiences: one being her niece Talia, who was born with a rare genetic disease and yoga played a massive part in being able to lead a full and active life; Second, was when a woman with a prosthetic limb walked into a class. Unsure of how, but determined,, she set out on her 20-year journey to make our industry more inclusive to the wider community. 

Hersha 基於兩個個人經歷而創立了 YAMA：第一，是她的侄女 Talia天生患有罕見的遺傳病，瑜伽在她能夠過上充實而積極的生活方面發揮了重要作用；第二，一位帶著義肢的女學生進入Hersha的瑜伽課堂。Hersha不確定如何，但堅定地踏上了 20 年的瑜伽導師旅程，以使我們的行業對更廣泛的社羣更具包容及共融。 

For me, working at YAMA is nothing but a joy. My own journey to being a part of YAMA was not a conventional one. With a background in special needs, but no desire to take it further, due to my own personal trials, I found myself with the opportunity to not only study and learn about yoga, but to become a yoga teacher, and then going on to specialise my yoga teaching to include people with disabilities and special needs. I realised that I actually enjoyed being taken out of my comfort zone of high-intensity sport. I found myself actually enjoying working with people with special needs and it was most certainly thanks to YAMA and Hersha for being so incredibly patient and accommodating to my own diverse needs.
對我而言，在 YAMA 工作是一種享受。我自己加入 YAMA 的旅程並非一切風條雨順。背著有特殊需要的背景的我，因生命中遇到的經歷今我不大願意向前看，突然發現自己有機會不僅學習和學識到瑜伽，而且更成為瑜伽老師，然後把自己學懂的發展至給患殘疾人和有特殊需要的人提供瑜伽。我才察覺到我其實很喜歡被帶出自己的安全網，更發現自己實際上很享受與有特殊需要的人一起工作，這當然要感謝 YAMA 和 Hersha，他們非常耐心地滿足我不同的需求。

Another one of our wonderful teachers, Mirna is a busy mother of two. Not only does she teach for YAMA, she is also a trained hypnotherapist, former corporate banker and trained Integral Yoga teacher. Mirna is constantly on the go but she is also full of the energy we would all aspire to have.
Mirna 是我們當中另一位出色的瑜伽導師，帶著兩個孩子和極忙碌的母親。她不僅為 YAMA 任教，還是一名訓練有素的催眠治療師、前公司銀行家和整體瑜伽老師。Mirna 總是奔波忙碌，但她也充滿了我們都渴望擁有的能量。

Lucia is one of our new teachers who not only is a highly motivational yoga teacher, but her day job involves actually being a teacher in a school. How she has the energy and grace to teach for us after a long day is anyone’s guess.
Lucia 是我們的新聘老師之一，她不僅是一位非常熱衷的瑜伽老師，更是一位學校教師。在漫長的一天之後，她如何充滿精力和優雅地為我們的社羣教學都超乎任何人的想象。

Accommodating is literally the name of the game here. As part of YAMA, we are taught to “Adapt, Adjust and Accommodate.” This mantra is what guides us as an organisation. While we may have more programmes to run than ever, we are also incredibly mindful that YAMA’s resources are limited, and our team simply does not have enough hours in the day to meet all the demands for services. We are very fortunate to have a flexible work environment, ensuring that each person who serves at YAMA can serve without sacrificing their own needs. Over the last three years, members of our team had to temporarily leave Hong Kong to be with family for extended periods of time. Thanks to modern technology, members of our team, like Angelita, are still able to keep their roles at YAMA, supporting our research and data entry as well as teaching our online classes. 
”通融”實際上是YAMA團隊的主旨。作為 YAMA 的一分子，我們被教導應要“適應、調整和配合”，這個是引領我們這個組織的口頭禪。這正正有助於現在我們比以往有更多的計劃項目要運行，亦非常清楚 YAMA 的資源是有限的，團隊每天根本沒有足夠的時間來滿足所有服務需求時如何配合。我們非常很幸能有一個靈活的工作環境，確保每個在 YAMA 服務的人都能在不犧牲自己需求的情況下為他人服務。在過去的三年裡，我們的團隊成員不得不暫時離開香港與家人團聚一段時間。多虧了現今科技，我們團隊的成員，如 Angelita，在外地亦仍然能夠保持在 YAMA 的角色，支持我們的研究和數據輸入以及教授網上課程。 

While women’s empowerment is being celebrated, we must also thank the men who have supported our journey forward – our male allies. We never set out to become an exclusively female-run organisation. It just happened that way. We do our jobs, provide a service and just get on with it. We would actually welcome men to join our team, and be a part of this diverse group.  Until then, we would like to recognise and honour all the amazing women at YAMA! Happy International Women’s Day to all.
在慶祝女性賦權的同時，我們也必須感謝支持我們前進的男性團員 — 我們的男性盟友。YAMA從未打算成為一個完全由女性經營的組織，一切都是自然發生的。我們竭力做好自己的工作，提供服務，繼續努力往前走。我們實際上歡迎男性加入我們的團隊，成為這個多元化團隊的一員。在那之前，我們想鳴謝和表彰 YAMA 團隊所有傑出的女成員！祝大家國際婦女節快樂！

by Mui Thomas 上