[custom_adv] “We thought it was a Buddhist practice of just sitting still and saying ‘om’,” said one woman, at the start of the first-ever yoga teacher training in Palestine’s West Bank. [custom_adv] A lack of yoga teachers, and a social stigma from the confused belief that the practice had something to do with a foreign religion, meant that until recently not many Palestinians had had exposure to yoga or meditation. [custom_adv] But in 2010 Farashe opened, a volunteer-based nonprofit community yoga centre in Ramallah that focuses on outreach. [custom_adv] In 2012 and 2013, Farashe was boosted when Washington DC-based nonprofit Anahata International ran teacher training for Palestinian women to take the self-care techniques into their communities on the West Bank. [custom_adv] With training from Farashe and others, over the last three years, about 80 men and women have become yoga teachers. [custom_adv] Today, yoga-based practices are integrated into community centres and gyms, not only among the elite of cosmopolitan Ramallah, but also in the small villages. [custom_adv] It’s used in health clinics in crowded refugee camps, and in classes at small private studios led by new teachers trained by international volunteers.