Why India?

The Yoga Medicine® Seva Foundation was established to address the severity of India’s human trafficking crisis. We are funded by Yoga Medicine® community members and individuals like YOU. We are independent of any political ideology, economic interest or religion. Our belief is that no situation is beyond hope, and India being the birthplace of yoga, we believe it is our duty to give back to a culture that has given us so much.

Global Crisis

Human trafficking is a $1.5 billion industry with 40+ million people trafficked each year. India has the highest number of people enslaved, with approximately 18 million people in modern slavery.

Red Light Areas

Women and children are expected to entertain a minimum of 20 men per day. Families that are forced to raise children in these areas are at high risk for child marriage, forced labor, and sexual and gender-based violence.
We provide financial support to exemplary grassroots nonprofits.

The special thing about Yoga Medicine® Seva Foundation is that we don’t pretend to have the answers. Instead, we provide financial support to exemplary grassroots nonprofits on the ground. We choose projects and organizations that align with our values, and we pride ourselves on listening to their needs.  

Since 2015 we’ve raised $400,000 donations and have positively affected 2000 women and girls.

We work with local operating partners to build, expand and maintain shelters for rescued girls, and to support the ongoing needs of girls in shelter care: food, clothing, medical care and counseling. Having a safe and loving place to recover – guarded from traffickers – is a crucial first step in a girl’s journey to recovery. Many girls are rescued as children and need a safe, loving home until they reach adulthood. 

These spaces provide a safe space for children to study and rest while their mothers are working. Children who are born into brothel communities are at extreme risk of being trafficked. 90% of girls and 75% of boys growing up in red light areas are sexually abused by the age of eight.

Many survivors and high risk girls have never been to school before, or had their education interrupted. Through our partner’s education programs, we serve over 750 children a year with high quality education and a full circle of services that make school success possible. 

Vocational Training, combined with life skills and financial literacy training, give women a pathway to become financially independent and less vulnerable to being exploited. They gain the power and agency to make choices for their own lives – often for the first time in their lives. Economic independence enables them to overcome stigma, move out of shelters, and support themselves and their children, breaking the cycle of poverty and intergenerational trafficking.

In 2022 we opened The Seva Center in our partner’s Learning Center. The Seva Center is the largest and most utilized room in the facility, accommodating up to 100 people. This workshop-style space is used to offer workshops such as Human Rights, Gender Equality and Financial Literacy, and also used to offer healing arts such as yoga, karate, dance and painting. Most importantly, this is a flexible space shifting and nurturing the needs of survivors and those at high risk.

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