Township Yogi Film

'Heart-breaking, beautiful and inspirational'

'A fabulous documentary’

'It is humbling and important for all those who love yoga to watch this documentary'

‘Heartwarming and inspirational’

‘Heartbreakingly beautiful’

'Township Yogi' is an award-winning documentary filmed in KwaMashu and Inanda, KwaZulu Natal, townships riddled with crime and unemployment, where many of the population are suffering from HIV and Aids, and where a drug called Whoonga is destroying communities and lives.

The documentary follows the setup of grassroots yoga studios in townships of South Africa, with the assistance of qualified yoga teachers. It traces the establishment of yoga classes and the attitude/involvement of the community – in places where the majority of people have never heard of 'yoga’ - and focusses on six unemployed people from Inanda, KwaMashu and Ntuzuma townships, who are selected to participate in yoga teacher training courses. The documentary follows them, as their lives are transformed through the power of yoga, and explores what ripple effect this has in the poverty-stricken, HIV, Whoonga and crime-ridden communities in which they live.

'Township Yogi' documents and explores whether people living in townships can harness the power of yoga to transform their lives. Most significantly, it explores whether yoga can be used as a tool to change the health and lifestyles of those struggling in the turmoil of communities where Whoonga has destroyed their lives, as well as those suffering from TB and HIV/Aids. The film is an expose on the damaging effects of many social problems on the lives of individual people in these townships, and the potential that yoga has to change lives and bring about transformation and hope.