Local yoga teacher, Charlotta Martinus, from Camerton, will this summer be launching a brand new initiative alongside her partner, Nick Kearney, to bring yoga to 14–25-year-old women and girls to become more involved in sport and exercise. This has been enabled through a grant awarded by Sport England and the This Girl Can campaign, which readers may have seen advertised online and on television, aimed to encourage young women to value themselves for their own unique qualities and strengths and not to shy away from taking part in sports for fear of being judged.

Charlotta and Nick will be travelling the area with a collapsible 'Yoga Yurt', an idea which came about after organising a yoga 'flashmob' in Southgate, Bath, two years ago. The Yoga Yurt will see a team of Teen Yoga teachers travel to various venues, such as universities, shopping centres and workplaces, to offer short and easy yoga sessions to women for free.

The grant has been given to the Teen Yoga Foundation, a new charity which Charlotta began to support young people in taking up yoga to improve mental health and performance in schools. Since 2003, she has been teaching yoga in local secondary schools – at Norton Hill, Ralph Allen, St Gregory's, Prior Park, Hayesfield Girls School and Oldfield School, Bath.

She explains: "I had worked as a teacher previously in languages – teaching has always been in my family. When I first began to approach schools, it was difficult for them to embrace my idea. But I was finding there is a much higher prevalence of anxiety in young people these days and a lack of awareness in how to handle it. This initiative was about giving students the tools to cope and apply to themselves and their friends.

"There has been a massive shift in attitudes when it comes to young people, mindfulness and mental health and now I have schools and students calling me to ask if I can bring yoga to them."

The Yoga Yurt will have a 'soft launch' on 8th July, at Bath University, where a mini Olympics for schools will be taking place. Its main launch will be in Bristol on 12th September, where the team will then travel around the local universities during Freshers Week. The £50,000 fund is an 'innovation fund' which will help launch the idea – if it is successful, it will continue into the future, with large corporate companies, such as Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer, showing interest. As well as the taster classes, the Yurt will give participants the opportunity to find out more about what to expect and those who take part in six classes over a period of time will be rewarded with a yoga class on a USB stick and, eventually, their own yoga mat.

Research has found that fear of being judged stops many women from taking up sport and Sport England is trying to combat this by investing £1 billion between 2012 and 2017 to get people into sports for life. "A fear of failure is often what holds people back," says Charlotta. "But if you do what you enjoy, there is no such thing as failure. There has been a correlation between yoga, mental health and emotional well-being and if you are in a more positive frame of mind, when faced with challenges, we can approach them differently.

"Materially, we have more than any generation, yet we have high levels of solitude, loneliness and a sense of lack. Yoga offers a loving community that does not judge, encourages participants to be kind to themselves and is about belonging."

As well as launching the Yoga Yurt, Charlotta spoke about her youth work at Alexandra Palace last

Sunday, as part of the U.N. International Yoga Day.

Furthermore, on 13th July, the Teen Yoga Foundation will be launching its first conference on Yoga, Education and Well-being in London and next year, she will be launching the Youth Yoga Ambassadors in schools – a two-week training course to become mini yoga teachers, so that pupils can help each other with any problems they may have and learn techniques to cope with stress.

To view the This Girl Can video, visit: http://www.thisgirl">www.thisgirl can.co.uk/ and be inspired!