YOGA 4 ALEX
1. SHANTY TOWN
A schoolboy walks between the shacks of Alexandra. The township is one of the main townships in Joburg and was built in the early 1900s to house non-white residents.
2. REST TIME
School children at the Minerva Secondary School lie on ‘shavasana’ at the end of their afternoon yoga class.
3. CENTERED
Yoga teacher Dipuo Smith stands with her hands in the prayer position among the shacks. Dipuo is one of five yoga teachers from the NGO Yoga4Alex.
4. BALANCE
Alex resident and yoga teacher, Bongekile Nguza, stands in ‘tree pose’ on a bench. The children are calmed and centered after yoga and it helps them to deal with life.
5. LET’S DANCE
Dipuo Smith stands in ‘dancer’ pose among the shacks. She is one of five teachers bringing the ancient Indian spiritual practice of Kundalini Yoga to the children of this impoverished area.
6. LET US PRAY
School children at the Minerva Secondary School sit with ‘hands at heart’ as they chant ‘mantra’ during their afternoon yoga class.
7. HELPING HAND
Alex Dipuo Smith helps a school student with full wheel pose as she teaches a yoga class to school children at the Minerva Secondary School in Alex.
8. SUPPLE
Dipuo Smith performs a backbend as she teaches a yoga class to school children.
9. LOOK ’N LEARN
Sindiso Moyo does a ‘plough pose’ as he is watched by children in the street. Sindiso was born in Zimbabwe and moved to South Africa.
10. COPY CATS
Children do yoga in the street as they try to emulate their teachers’ yoga poses. The young teachers are bringing yoga to the 2 000 school children in the area.
11. SNACK TIME
School children buy sweets after school at a spaza shop in Alexandra. Thousands of children and teenagers live in an environment of poverty and crime in Alex.
12. FOUNDER
NGO Yoga4Alex founder Dr Marianne Felix does a back bend. Kundalini is a school of yoga focusing on awakening energies through regular practice of meditation, asana, mantra and pranayama.