Special needs yoga: from disabilities to chronic illness and cancer, the group making yoga accessible to all

Hong Kong’s yoga scene is thriving, but people with disabilities or chronic illnesses have limited opportunities to learn yoga and benefit from its practice. The non-profit Yama Foundation is addressing this gap by making yoga more accessible to such people.

“We started Yama Foundation because we believe that people, regardless of their age, ability or background, should have access to yoga,” says 41-year-old Hersha Chellaram, who established the foundation in 2016 with her husband Shaman. “We wanted to share these ancient teachings with communities that are unable to attend a regular class.”

Chellaram grew up practising yoga with her father, a student of the renowned Indian spiritual and yoga master Satchidananda Saraswati. She went on to study yoga in Satchidananda’s institute in the US state of Virginia, and later in Coimbatore, India. She became a certified yoga instructor and has been teaching for 16 years.

The idea for Yama came from two key events in her life. The first was more than 15 years ago when a woman with a wooden leg walked into one of her yoga classes. “I was taken aback and didn’t know how to instruct her. It made me realise that yoga was not accessible to everyone, especially to those who may need it the most,” Chellaram says.

Then a few years later, Chellaram’s niece, Talia, was born with a rare genetic cognitive disorder.

“Talia started learning yoga from a very young age. I saw how immensely yoga benefited her, both physically and mentally, enabling her to cope with her condition. It inspired me to help children in similar situations,” she says.