Video: A pioneering Buddhist retreat for homeless youth

This year, New York City-based Reciprocity Foundation (which you may have read about SunSpace previously, here) pioneered a Buddhist retreat program for homeless youth. This is the first program of its kind in America:

Nearly thirty youth headed upstate to attend three-day spiritual retreats — in which they were offered yoga and meditation instruction, bodywork treatments, vegetarian meals, dharma talks, holistic counseling and plenty of time to connect with Mother Nature.

The homeless youth attendees, many of whom had never left the city, had to overcome many fears (of the dark, of insects and animals, of vegetarian food!) while on retreat. But it didn’t take long before they learned to connect to their hearts — and their inner wisdom. As a result, the many of the youth report experiencing profound breakthroughs on retreat — and that they developed powerful new visions for how they wanted to work, live and express their gifts in the world.

This video was co-created by homeless youth to capture their experience while on retreat.

See also: Fighting Homelessness with Mindfulness — A guest post by Taz Tagore of The Reciprocity Foundation.

Click here to learn more about the Reciprocity Foundation: reciprocityfoundation.org, or view their blog.

View the Reciprocity Foundation’s videos, featuring homeless youth here.

Or, donate $1, $5, $10 to support Reciprocity’s new holistic center for homeless youth.