The recently formed Project Koa Yoga aims to make yoga and meditation more accessible to people of gender diversity, marginalized communities and Native Hawaiians.
Co-founded in 2021 by Laura Toyofuku-Aki and Victoria Roland, the company offers yoga classes and teacher training to those who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) and/or QTIA2SMahu+, a term used for queer, transgender, intersex, asexual, two-spirit and mahu.
Toyofuku-Aki, who is of Native Hawaiian and Japanese ancestries, said she and Roland saw there was a need to make marginalized communities feel welcome in yoga classes, which are typically exclusive, largely dominated by white people of high socio-economic status and led by teachers of similar background.
Most of Koa Yoga’s teachers are Native Hawaiians or of diverse sexual and economic backgrounds, and trained to work with those who have suffered trauma, she said.
The mainstay of Project Koa is a yoga teacher training session, which started in May and ends in October. There are 25 students enrolled via scholarship, which has made the training more accessible. The curriculum is organized into three parts: yoga philosophy and practices, and Hawaiian culture. The focus is on Hawaiian culture, history and the social injustices that impact Native Hawaiians and the less advantaged.
The company plans to offer a scholarship-based teacher training session every year for BIPOC and QTIA2SMahu+ students, with the next one scheduled for next summer. Eventually, there will be teacher training sessions open to anyone for a fee.
Weekly one-hour yoga classes for BIPOC students are held at 9:30 a.m. Saturdays at Breathe Oahu in Kailua, 315 Uluniu St., for $15. Register for these classes on the website projectkoayoga.com, or email info@projectkoayoga.com; call 951-284-9650.
