PESARO – It’s called “Yoga in prison” is the project aimed at the inmates of the female section of the Pesaro prison, who from Saturday 6 April will begin to practice the discipline once a week. A total karma yoga initiative (volunteer service) born from an idea of Manuela Andreanicreator and coordinator of the project, with the patronage of the Sports Councilor Mila Della Dora, and the director of the Pesaro prison Annalisa Gasparro.
«A beautiful project that aims to make us reflect, become aware of our body and mind – commented councilor Della Dora -. In the year of the Italian Capital of Culture 2024 we have chosen to strengthen this type of sensitivity, linked to sport and the well-being of the community. I thank the organizers and the director of the prison.”
A project that, as he explains Manuela Andreaniconsistently with the themes of responsibility and legality, was born with the aim of seeing prison «as a place in which to give something back to the prisoner along his journey, so that he is not reinstated once the state of illegality has emerged. Prison must be a place of I work on oneself, within oneself.” According to Andreani, the repercussions of the practice of yoga within a prison context and on people who have to live in a situation of forced constraint can be: «a decrease in the level of aggression that each prisoner pours out on his companions and on himself and a greater serenity of mind, which pushes us to overcome the dynamics of isolation and further marginalization of some prisoners”. And goes on: «Yoga means union in Sanskrit. Union is understood as integration of oneself, integration of mind, body, breath and heart through the search for personal internal and external harmony. Promoting listening and presence and the rInspection of the body, the practitioner can renew his awareness of the values useful for his own internal well-being and functional to the ultimate project of detention, i.e. promoting a dignified and lastingly successful social reintegration. We believe in the potential of yoga practice in all conditions and we want to bring it even where it would be most difficult to reach, make it known and make it available to people who live, have lived, have caused suffering; because a civilization that forgets prisoners cannot be called a civil society. We often struggle internally trying to push away, alienate, what is uncomfortable and harmful, unacceptable even to ourselves. On the contrary, practicing the inclusion of the unacceptable, teaching in a place where most people would avoid going, makes us feel an active part of a project of change, of collective hope, engines of human recovery for humanity itself . This project wants to do its part for the diffusion of yoga as a tool for personal and social integration. The teaching of yoga in prison is particularly effective in terms of recovering physical, mental and emotional presence.”
The vision that the new director Annalisa Gasparro has of prison is in fact that of a place in which to “give something back” to the prisoner along his journey, a place in which to begin to practice the assumption of responsibility, so that it is not restored, once released, the state of illegality. Thus the director of the prison: «The situation of female detention is quite a peculiar situation. A condition which, in my opinion, is not always looked at with due importance, partly due to the lower percentage of women prisoners compared to the population for which the system was designed. We welcomed the project with enthusiasm because it puts the condition of women at the centre, through the important and rehabilitative practice of sport.”
A crucial partner is the King Spa company, with its new KING store (via Gagarin 126 in Pesaro), which donated the mats on which the inmates will practice to the female sector of the Pesaro prison. The support of Commander Nicandro Silvestri, Deputy Commissioner Tiziano Tontini and the head of the legal and pedagogical area Enrichetta Vilella was invaluable.
