Our Giving Back, Our Partners & Mozambique
At Sahaja Yoga Mats, we are a for-profit-for-a-purpose. We feel a social responsibility to every being on Earth. We are passionate about our communities and Mother Earth. So we hold in mind the ecological footprints we leave. Our Founder Judes Yang, feels truly blessed and grateful to the opportunities she has received through out her whole life.
During her darkest days of her mental health stuggle, she received an abundance of love and kindness, a love that held here and helped her heal. This is why Judes created Sahaja Yoga Mats, to give back to others. To light up other peoples lives as her life has been.
At Sahaja we want to do more, to be more, not just for humanity but for our planet. So from the first day we wanted to provide a high end quality product that is eco-friendly and is going to last, instead of cheap lower end yoga mats to add to landfill.
Our luxury high performance, eco-friendly printed yoga mats are recyclable. The micro fibre towel is made from recycled plastics and bonded to a natural rubber base. and for every yoga mat we sell, we donate a solar light to communities in Mozambique.
We purchase the solar lights from Illumination Solar, another Australian company. We choose Illumination Solar, as they're another social enterprise company like us, and they also have a giving program, called Give Power or BOGO: Buy One Give One. Which is one of Sahaja's core values, such synchronicity!
We donate the solar lights to Mega Marine Fauna Foundation, (MMFF) who are a non-profit and distribute the lights in Mozambique. One distribution channel is through MMFF's flagship education program, the Nemos Pequenos “Little Nemos”. Which teaches young people how swim, to live with and protect the marine environment. The children and trainee instructors participating in Nemos Pequenos, do not have electricity in their homes and this dramatically impacts their ability to learn.
Together we, you the Light Giver and Sahaja, donate the lights to the children and instructors who graduate from the Nemos Pequenos program as Ocean Guardians. These young Mozambicans will, for the first time, have safe, clean light in their homes after dark.
Mozambique
Mozambique has one of Africa’s longest and most diverse coastlines. 54% of the population in Mozambique, live in poverty and there are many families who can not afford to pay for electricity. They can't afford to buy kerosene and paraffin wax to burn, for simply daily living during the evenings.
“With Mandarin 2 Solar Lights, our children will study longer. Our eldest likes to teach his siblings but has to stop when it gets dark,” says Joaqim Faniero from Bomba Village. The children will also be much safer. An incredible 1 in 3 of the residents have direct experience of their home or a friend’s home burning down due to kerosene lamps or candles.
By tapping into renewable energy with the solar lights we not only leave cleaner footprints on our planet, but we also light up peoples lives who have no electricity and move away from harmful kerosene or paraffin wax.
When you buy a Sahaja Yoga Mat, you aren't just receiving a luxury eco friendly printed yoga mat, you are making a difference in another persons life, you become a light giver.
We are formally committed to donate the equivalent of 2% of revenues or more to charitable partners each year (including in kind product donations).