Our role

How does Freeing the Human Spirit engage with the prisons, the inmates and the volunteers? Read on to learn more.
Our Role

This is how we work in the prisons

Our ideal offering is weekly yoga and meditation training delivered over an 8-week course. Each session includes 1–1.5 hours of yoga, followed by 20–40 minutes of meditation. While classes are currently offered through prison chaplaincies, our approach is non-denominational, focused on body and mind awareness for everyone.

And that’s not all.

Every institution is different. Where the ideal 8-week format isn't possible, we adapt — shorter or longer courses, modified schedules, whatever it takes to get the program delivered. Across every format, one thing has stayed constant: the gratitude and dedication of the people in our classes.

The following tasks

are undertaken by

Freeing the Human Spirit.

Teacher Training

Our teachers come from yoga studios, meditation groups, and anyone with a genuine interest in teaching inside prisons — many drawn to this work through karma yoga, teaching freely in service of others. We prepare each instructor specifically for the institutional environment and the population they’ll be working with.

Teaching Materials

We provide our teachers with a Facilitator’s Guide, and our participants receive a copy of Finding Freedom Within, written for people practising inside.

We are developing an organization which delivers:

  • the mobilizing of teachers;
  • teacher training;
  • ensuring that all contact information is kept current;
  • some proselytizing about the merits of the program to possible funders and government officials;
  • providing liability insurance for teachers;
  • facilitating communications between the volunteers at various locations across Canada, to discuss best practices, issues of common interest as a community of volunteers;
  • providing funding for mats, cushions, and the various tools of the trade, and
  • providing charitable receipts for donors or volunteers who are making contributions to the mission of FTHS

”In my years of teaching meditation and yoga in Canadian prisons, the carriage of the men has been viscerally defined by their thankfulness and dedication to task. What better qualities could you have in your students?

Richard BoadwayPresident and Chair