AZAHAR Foundation

About Us

AZAHAR means orange blossom. It is a Spanish word of Arabic origin and is symbolic of the cross-cultural juxtapositions that color and flavor our beautiful blue planet. Being the first and last letter of the Roman alphabet, the A&Z symbolize the beginning and the end, the all-encompassing, the point and the zero. A blossom is a sign of new beginnings, and it indicates a new level of consciousness where humanity is able to live in peace and harmony.

History

The idea of AZAHAR developed organically with my life’s journey. The initial vision for cross-cultural work came while standing on the Alcazar in Cordoba, Spain, looking over fields of orange trees and into Africa and the Americas through the horizons.
After years of studying various styles of modern dance and classical ballet, I immersed myself in African and Afro-Caribbean Dance in New York. Along with that came a deep interest in cross-culturalism, as well as a preoccupation with issues of baseless prejudice and racism. Based on that foundation, I ran two multi-media, multi-cultural dance companies in New York. A vision quest in the Native American tradition revealed AZAHAR’s purpose as a peace building force, primarily led by women, combining arts and spirituality.
Having been a close witness to the 9/11 attacks in New York, I found solace in in the teachings of Jivamukti Yoga and inspiration for a peace village in Thich Nhat Han’s Plum Village. AZAHAR’s first project was with Fundación Para La Paz in Colombia, adding yoga to a rehabilitation program for guerilla soldiers. In 2007, the organization began supporting a group of young people from an orphanage center in Cambodia with yoga and supporting education.
As the young people matured, we started organizing annual Peace Camps and a 2-year Peace Curriculum, both of which served to deepen their practice of yoga and meditation, and to expose them to the arts and methodologies of peace-building and social development.
AZAHAR also sponsored two local yoga teacher trainings for mostly disadvantaged youth. In 2017, the AZAHAR Center for Peace, Yoga & Arts was founded in Phnom Penh, with a smaller sister-center in Siem Reap, which also housed the first vegan Cambodian restaurant, Mahob Buos (Monk’s Food). These centers have provided employment for our beneficiaries, both in administrative capacities and as yoga teachers. The center and restaurant in Siem Reap were closed due to Covid-19, whereas the center in Phnom Penh still works at reduced capacity.
In 2016, Yogeswari and Jeanine Munyeshuli identified local teachers and started a program in Rwanda, teaching yoga to genocide survivors in 4 NGOs.
In partnership with Jivamukti Yoga NYC and Jivamukti Global, AZAHAR has provided scholarships for the international 300-hour Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training to o teachers from Colombia, Lebanon, Cambodia, Rwanda, Ivory Coast and Syria.

Founder

YOGESWARI

YOGESWARIGrowing up in a multi-lingual household in Switzerland, while also traveling the world with my family, I developed a keen interest for world cultures, their languages, arts and spiritual traditions.
After two years of studying ethnology and theater at the FU Berlin, I went on to study dance and choreography in the US (BFA McL Temple U, Philadelphia; MA NYU, (New York). In my 20-year career as a dancer/choreographer, my main interest was the juxtaposition of different cultural aesthetics and media, as well as socio-political issues and multi-culturalism.
In 1999, I completed a Yoga Teacher Training at Jivamukti Yoga School in New York. I am advanced certified in the method and have been teaching classes, workshops and teacher trainings around the world. I founded AZAHAR Foundation in 2007.

Team

AZAHAR Cambodia

Vision:

AZAHAR Cambodia envisions a society where people are practicing non-violent commination for harmonious society, firmly rooted in its cultural traditions.

Goal:

AZAHAR aims to expose young people to the rich culture traditions and enable them to find professional education and job opportunities in the fields of entertainment and sports.

Objective:

To promote education on sport, yoga and the arts to young people, especially to reach the underprivileged targets.
Increase a safe employment environment through the arts, entertainment, sports and health for young people.

Mission:

AZAHAR Cambodia will expose young Cambodians to a variety of traditional art forms, sports, yoga and health awareness. More capacity building to youth will be provided through international exchange programs such as conferences, artistic collaborations, exhibitions and artists’ residencies and retreats.
Create learning spaces that will eventually become accredited. Azahar beneficiaries will be employed as teachers in these schools, and more employment will be generated by building an infrastructure with partner organizations. Both schools will do outreach in the provinces to recruit the most talented young people in sports and the arts.

CAMBODIA

AZAHAR Foundation initiated its activities in Cambodia in 2007 with Yoga classes and educational support for a group of 14 young people from an orphanage center in Phnom Penh. The idea was to work with a smaller group and provide assistance to the same young people for a period of several years through a sponsorship program, in order to insure lasting effects. Every year these young people were invited to participate in an intensive Jivamukti Yoga retreat with Cat Alip-Douglas and Yogeswari in Angkor Vat. From this original group five have now become Yoga teachers, all based in Phnom Penh, and with occasional engagements in Siem Reap and Battambang.
In 2014, the young people were ready to embrace a wider scope of peace building activities, and AZAHAR Foundation organized its first national Peace Camp in Kampot, in the South of Cambodia. The now annual Peace Camps focuses on a particular theme each year and brings together several NGO managers and beneficiaries in a peaceful and quiet place to exchange in constructive dialogue and creative expression. 2014 was on Non-Violent Communication, 2015 on Curriculum Development and 2016 on Women’s Empowerment.
In 2015, AZAHAR Foundation launched an 8-month Peace Curriculum in Phnom Penh, allowing 17 young people to deepen their understanding in Non-Violent Communication (according to Marshall Rosenberg), Youth Leadership, Women’s Empowerment, Forum Theater (Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed), Yoga/Meditation and Art Therapy. The participants were between 20 and 33 years old, and all came from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Peace Curriculum culminated with a 2-month internship with Youth For Peace, where the participants contributed insightful research for a book on Khmer Rouge activities in various provinces.
The same group of young people were sponsored by AZAHAR Foundation to continue with a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training recognized by the UK Yoga Alliance, and taught by Oskar Nery and Allison Hawkins of Yoga Phnom Penh.
The demand for a home base was answered in 2015 when En Dara, AZAHAR’s oldest beneficiary, and the first Khmer woman to be a Yoga teacher in Cambodia, decided to open her own Yoga studio, Cambodia Home Yoga. AZAHAR has supported this project for the first two years and also run its activities there. In 2017 AZAHAR is taking over Yoga Phnom Penh and moving its home base to this more central location.

MAIN ACTIVITIES

SOCIAL BUSINESS AND YOGA PHNOM PENH
The Social Business is to provide regular Meditation & Yoga classes, classes in various art forms and workshops in different peace building methodologies. Income generated from these activities will support the non-profit thrust of AZAHAR Foundation to expose a maximum number of young people to the teachings and methodologies of peace and to nurture hidden talents and aspirations in any of the disciplines mentioned above.
Beginning June 2017, the new AZAHAR location will be at House 39, Street 21 Opposite Pagoda Wat Svay Popey Near TchoTchou School | Tonle Bassac, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The relocation, purchase of the business and rent for one year will cost $55,000.

YOGA TEACHER TRAINING
The first Yoga Teacher Training sponsored by AZAHAR Foundation took place at Yoga Phnom Penh from beginning of October 2016 to the end of January 2017. It was taught by Allison Hawkins and Oskar Nery, and is a certificate acknowledged by the UK Yoga Alliance. 16 young people took part, graduated and will now be employed by AZAHAR Foundation to teach open classes at the city center location and to disadvantaged youth in various NGOs.
Teacher Training is projected to be held every other year, and runs at a cost of $18,000.

PEACE CAMP

Since 2014, annual Peace Camps provide a retreat for beneficiaries of AZAHAR Foundation and its partner organizations to share in various methodologies and angles of peace building. Each day begins with Meditation & Yoga Asana. Each year a specific focus is chosen, and events, facilitators and participating NGOs are chosen to support that focus. In 2014, the main focus was on Non-Violent Communication (according to Marshall Rosenberg). The first Non-Violent Communication facilitator in Cambodia, Keng Bunchhoeuth introduced a perspective new to most, of healing a generation that has been scarred by the violence, atrocities and traumas lived through by their parents. It was obvious that a week-end retreat was not enough to process these wounds, the Peace Camp 2015 focussed on Curriculum Development and was only held with leaders of Non-Violent Communication, Phare Circus, Youth for Peace and Theater for Development. From this Peace Camp, the Peace Curriculum emerged. In 2016, AZAHAR beneficiaries asked for a focus on Women’s Empowerment, which helped to break through cultural myths and superstitions that have kept Cambodian women hostage since war and genocide destroyed the educated leadership.
2017 will focus on Buddhist nuns and their social activism, as well as how to teach Yoga and Meditation to people with trauma.
Cost: $6,000

PEACE CURRICULUM
The 8-month Peace Curriculum held in 2015/16 emerged from the first peace Camp in 2014. It was clear that beneficiaries needed an on-going safe place and atmosphere of support with facilitators and colleagues to assimilate new visions about life, while also processing their often traumatic experiences. The group met every week-end at Cambodia Home Yoga. There were intensive workshops in Non-Violent Communication (according tho Marshall Rosenberg), Forum Theater, Women’s Empowerment, Youth Leadership and Psychology, always framed by sessions in Yoga & Meditation. The Peace Curriculum culminated in a 2-month internship at Youth for Peace, where beneficiaries did insightful research for a book about Khmer Rouge activities in various Cambodian provinces. This was of particular relevance, since the genocide is no longer acknowledged and taught in Cambodian schools. The Peace Curriculum will be offered every other year.

YOGA PROGRAM
The Yoga program is about reaching disadvantaged youth through various NGOs, while also providing a dignified source of income for the graduates of AZAHAR’S Yoga Teacher Training. Outreach has so far been limited due to lack of Cambodian teachers, but with our first generation of Yoga teachers, this will change. NGOs whom AZAHAR has offered classes to include Happy Chandara, Globalteer, Phare Ponlieu Selpak, Riverkids among others.
Cost: with a contribution of $30 you sponsor one Yoga class for an NGO that is unable to pay for Yoga classes.
Cost: $10,000

YOGA RETREAT
Since 2008 Yogeswari and Cat Alip-Douglas from Sangye Yoga School in London teach an annual Jivamukti Yoga Retreat in Angkor Vat, where beneficiaries of AZAHAR are invited to participate. This retreat affords them intensive training in Yoga, a connection with the noble roots of Cambodian culture and friendships with international students. Starting in 2016, this retreat will take place every other year.
Cost: $3,000, covered in its entirety by retreat participants’ contribution.

Mahob Buos Vegan Restaurant
Mahob Buos Vegan Restaurant is a social business owned by AZAHAR Cambodia, an NGO that promotes peace, yoga and the arts in Cambodia and 3 others countries.
The income from Mahob Buos Vegan Restaurant supports our programs such as the "free vegan food and yoga for kids". We provide food and yoga for free to kids and young people from Siem Reap province so they can benefit from yoga practice and be exposed to veganism as a non-violent lifestyle.

ABOUT YOGESWARI
Yogeswari is the founder and president of AZAHAR Foundaton. Based at Jivamukti Yoga Center in New York, Yogeswari is a world-renowned Jivamukti Yoga teacher and is one of the most senior teachers in the method. She is known for her vigorous and seamless Vinyasa sequencing, as well as for her thought-provoking philosophical teachings. Yogeswari is Advanced Certified in the Jivamukti Yoga Method, and has taken many Jivamukti Certified Teachers through one-on- one apprenticeships towards their 800-hour certification. She has assisted and co-taught Jivamukti Teacher Trainings with Sharon Gannon and David Life in Germany, India, Costa Rica and the US.
Yogeswari is featured as one of the 100 most influential Yoga teachers in the US by Sonima. She brings with her a 20-year background in choreography and dance. She was the founder, director and choreographer of KOO Dance Company from 1984-92, and of AZAHAR Dance Company from 1992-97. She holds an MA in choreography and dance from New York University and BFA Magna cum Laude in dance from Temple University, Philadelphia. Born in Switzerland, she teaches in five languages.

More info

AZAHAR Center for Peace, Yoga and Arts Siem Reap facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/YogaSiemReapCambodia/

AZAHAR Center for Peace, Yoga and Arts Phnom Penh facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/PhnomPenhYoga/

Yogeswari :
http://yogeswari.org/about.html