Our Story

The Yoga Foundation originally started life as The Breath Foundation, Michael de Manincor’s vision to bring yoga to those living with hardship. In 2009 the name changed to The Yoga Foundation and the foundation was registered as a charity with Australian Tax Office Deductible Gift Recipient status. The Yoga Foundation has licenses to fundraise in every state of Australia.

In 2014 a strategic review refocused the work of The Yoga Foundation from the broader “people living with hardship:” to a more specific “people living with anxiety and depression who experience hardship”.

The Yoga Foundation exists and is driven by a passion to bring the benefits of yoga to disadvantaged people who, for a variety of reasons, do not access yoga easily. Some cannot afford classes, others cannot physically or mentally manage to get to a class or do not feel comfortable doing classes in the general community. Many mistakenly think of yoga as just for the fit and flexible. Our mission is to bring yoga to these people in order to improve their quality of life.

Yoga as part of of a health model is not widely understood by health practitioners or governments and we work to demonstrate how yoga is an effective mind and body health strategy. Its dual therapeutic and preventative benefits are relevant in a world where current health systems become unsustainable. Current government health policy is to look at preventative health measures and yoga is a great solution.

Our yoga programs must be evidence based: anecdotal evidence is not enough. We work to aggregate current research from around the world and apply research methodology to our work. This evidence is critical if health policies are to change.