As part of one of our sessions in Thorntree we practiced Yoga. Before hand, some of the young people spoke about how they had never taken part in any kind of Yoga before, and those who said they had previously engaged with it within school said they didn’t enjoy that experience. One of the young people in this session, who engages with us on a weekly basis, often struggles to communicate effectively with other young people and staff; however, once he realised that yoga was part of the session he began fully engaging in the activities, and even went out of his way to encourage other young people to take part.
After the other young people had joined in on the Yoga session, this young person was then asked by the instructor to demonstrate some of the yoga postures. He was visibly thrilled to be made a positive example of, and during the session the other young people taking part praised him for how well he had carried out certain poses.
The following week, this young person came in with quite a different attitude to the session; he made more conversation than he usually would, and readily took part in activities despite there already being a number of young people taking part – which previously would have been daunting for him. For this young person this is a huge achievement, and he is continuing to do extremely well.