YEU initiates Hippocampus - Phase 1 in Belgium

In April 2018, YEU has started the implementation of the first phase of Hippocampus project offering yoga sessions to Brussels based youth organizations’ staff, volunteers and professionals at Mundo-J centre.

Hippocampus is a two-year project funded by European Union through Erasmus plus programme and coordinated by University of Salamanca through GRIAL Research group. The aim of the project is to develop and implement an appropriate yoga-based approach to bring the benefits of yoga to young people in situations of disadvantage. We believe that yoga can support the work of organisations with young people, especially disadvantaged ones.

The HIPPOCAMPUS project aims to address issues such as increased stress (not only managing existing situations of stress but also avoiding them) and lack of focus by promoting the well-being of young people through the practice of a range of techniques derived from yoga.

Besides the case of YEU, the project is simultaneously implemented in different European countries as the team project is made up of:

• OXFAM ITALIA (Italy);
• TEEN YOGA FOUNDATION (UK);
• NTNU-TRONDHEIM (Norway); and
• IES Venancio Blanco (Spain).

The organizations taking part to the activities in Brussels promoting by YEU are the following ones:

• European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA);
• Friends of the Earth Europe;
• European Students' Union;
• European Federation for Intercultural Learning;
• Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU);
• World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM); and
• European Coalition for Corporate Justice.

The yoga teacher, Emmanuelle Lambert, has already delivered five interesting yoga lessons on which participants learnt some yoga techniques useful to manage stressing situation. There are only 3 yoga lessons missing in order to end the first phase on Hippocampus project. Then, the participants will be able to use all the knowledge acquired in their work activities and bring the benefits of yoga to young people in situations of disadvantage. YEU’s intention is to implement yoga techniques in all YEU events with their volunteers/members/activists.

For more information on the project, visit the website at https://hippocampusproject.eu/