Expanding Our Horizons: Diversifying Who Teaches Yoga 

At JP Centre Yoga, we are committed to creating an inclusive and diverse environment where everyone feels welcome to explore the transformative practice of yoga. Yoga is a practice that transcends boundaries, and by ensuring diversity among yoga teachers, we have the opportunity to cultivate a richer and more comprehensive learning experience. Embracing a wide range of perspectives allows us to tend to the diverse needs and interests of yoga practioners from all walks of life, empowering them to find a sense of connection within their practice.

 By expanding the pool of yoga teachers, we can provide a platform for voices that have been historically underrepresented within the Westernized yoga community. We firmly believe that yoga is for everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age, or ability. Thus, it is our responsibility to seek out and support talented instructors from marginalized communities, creating a space where all individuals can feel seen, heard, and respected. 

At JP Centre Yoga, we firmly believe that diversity strengthens our community and enriches our collective experience of yoga. By diversifying who teaches yoga, we create an inclusive space where all can feel welcome and represented.

Making Yoga More Accessible For BIPOC Communities

In an effort to bridge the divide that has long existed within the yoga community between privilege and underserved populations, we have created more access and opportunity for communities that are unrepresented within our industry. One of the intiatives of The Yoga Equity Project is to offer scholarships and mentorship to prospective teachers from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities.

The JP Centre Yoga BIPOC Fellowship program

What seperates our Fellowship from any other scholarship program is that in addition to offering a full scholarship to our 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training, we also provide a full year of mentorship, throughout and after the time of the training. Each fellow is teamed up with an Teacher of Color from the JP Centre Yoga teaching staff and meets with them weekly one-on-one. This provides the necessary skills and support to thrive in their teaching careers.

Our fellowship program was developed in conversation with past BIPOC trainees and teachers. Through our collaborative efforts we aim to provide specific support to new BIPOC teachers with the hope of further diversifying the leadership of the yoga industry. Your donation supports the JPCY community effort to build access for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color teachers and leadership.

The Increased Access Scholarship

JP Centre Yoga offers full tuition to an individual in each training cohort who is interested in primarily teaching to under-resourced populations - those who may not be able to normally afford or access yoga. If you would like to see more yoga programs in facilities and neighborhoods that have any number of barriers to access yoga, we want to help make it a reality!

What You're Funding

As practitioners of yoga, we know the power that this practice has to eradicate personal and collective suffering. At JP Centre Yoga, we do our best to create space for a more diversified yoga community, but we cannot do it alone. That is why we are reaching out to you to assist us in sharing the gift of yoga teaching with everyone.

Fellowship Program:

Full tuition for up to three BIPOC students.
Weekly one-on-one support between fellowship recipients and BIPOC mentors who teach at JP Centre Yoga. Mentorship lasts for one year, throughout the training and for 7 additional months post graduation.

Group Mentorship opportunities:

optional monthly affinity spaces for BIPOC trainees as well as anti-racism mentorship for white-identified trainees, led by BIPOC and white teaching staff respectively.

Increased Access Scholarship:

Your donation will also fund an additional full tuition of one teacher committed to teaching yoga in underserved populations.

In order for us to offer this Fellowship again in 2024, we need your help meeting our $12,500 fundraising goal by January 1st, 2024.

A Little More Back Story...

The seeds of our BIPOC Fellowship were planted in 2015 when, in partnership with Yoga Diversity Initiative, we began offering a full scholarship for a Person of Color to attend every cycle of our 200hr Teacher Training.

In 2017, this evolved into two scholarship opportunity tracks: one that continued to be in collaboration with YDI for BIPOC individuals interested in becoming teachers AND another led solely by JPCY for anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity, interested in teaching yoga outside of studios in communities that have little to no access to the practice.

These educational pathways evolved once again in 2021 to offer fully funded scholarships, and weekly one-on-one mentorship from current BIPOC teachers to our fellows. The Fellowship Fund also covers the additional costs of incorporating mentors into the course material throughout the training, providing a monthly affinity group spaces for all BIPOC students in the training cohort as well as an antiracist affinity group for white yoga teachers and trainees.

The addition of this program's active supports for BIPOC and racial education to our training was HUGELY SUCCESSFUL in the years 2021-2023. As a small independent studio in an expensive market, we are turning to you, our community, to contribute to this 2024 BIPOC Fellowship Fund and join us in the impactful work of lifting up BIPOC yoga students and teachers here at our studio and beyond.

2024 BIPOC Fellowship Fund

By JP Centre Yoga

2024 BIPOC Fellowship Fund

Support Three Fellows who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color in the 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training Cohort at JP Centre Yoga