Devoting thoughts and energy globally to the right to food

FIAN International was honored to have been named beneficiary for World Yoga Day 2013, and made a call-out last February 24, 2013 to participating yoga schools, studios, teachers and students to take part in a 2-hour donation class, with the proceeds going to fund our work.

FIAN International is extremely grateful and excited to [have been] the World Yoga Day 2013 beneficiary,” said Secretary General Flavio Valente on the occasion. “It is very motivating for our work to know that thousands of yoga practitioners around the world will dedicate their practice to the defense of human rights, especially the right to food”.

As film director and yoga teacher Samira Radsi said, “devoting our thoughts and energy globally to the right to food will generate a powerful impact”, which is what the positive response from people showed last February and the awareness FIAN was hoping to achieve.

Thanks to the enthusiastic participation of 457 studios in 52 countries and over 7,000 yogis around the world, FIAN International has collected a total of 38,850.59 Euro (52,653.89 USD) to support our work for the promotion and protection of the right to food.

This amazing contribution will be very helpful for FIAN to continue the advocacy and public pressure exertion to hold governments accountable for the human right violations to adequate food together with the seventeen national FIAN sections as well as many other allies around the world. This includes work on cases such as the fight for the right to territory of the Guarani-Kaiowá indigenous peoples of Brazil; the indigenous people in the village of Kusum Tola, Jharkhand, India whose survival is threatened by open cast coal mining, destroying agricultural lands, forests and water sources; the support of peasants in Bajo Aguán, Honduras, where more than 50 organized peasants and human rights defenders were killed during the last three years; and small farmers in Mubende, Uganda, who were evicted to make way for a German company’s coffee plantation; among others.

“We would like to thank all who participated and contributed on World Yoga Day 2013 in support of our work as a human rights organization advocating for the right to adequate food”, Anita Klum, President of FIAN International, said. “We hope that you can take part in World Yoga Day 2014, which will have Oxfam as its beneficiary, for nations all over the world to come together to support this project, because it is through collective effort that we can achieve real changes”, she concluded.

More information about World Yoga Day