Qatar based doctors on surgical mission saving lives in Somalia
Jessamyn Stanley needs you to know what yoga is really about - and it's not the poses. In her new book Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance, the yoga instructor and body activist shares reflective personal essays that touch upon everything from racism to the cultural appropriation of American yoga, from consumerism to cannabis. And while the timing couldn't be better considering the current cultural climate, the idea for the book came to her years ago while she was writing her first book, Every Body Yoga, a guide to developing a yoga practice. "I realized yoga is a lot more than postures," she tells PEOPLE. "The postures get to be more complicated, not because you're practicing harder gymnastics or physical postures, but because you're practicing emotional and mental and really spiritual postures." In fact, she says, yoga is not supposed to feel good. Take the example of someone expecting a Zen-like experience from a yoga practice - only to be disappointed. "You're like, 'This is hard. Everyone else seems to know what they're doing. I am not good enough, I shouldn't be doing this, maybe my body is supposed to look different, maybe my life's supposed to be different.' All these feelings start to come up. That's what the postures are leading you towards, is to have that experience." RELATED: Jessamyn Stanley Found Body Acceptance Through Yoga and Can Help You Do the Same Stanley has been nurturing this self-awareness in the nearly 10 years since she has been breaking barriers in the yoga world, tackling topics like fat-shaming, her queer Black identity and unattainable beauty standards. In Yoke - which means yoga in Sanskrit - she uses her own life as a a metaphor to further explore the coming together of mind and body, light and the dark, good and the bad - both on and off the mat. "I wanted to reflect on what it is to practice yoga when we are as a society being forced to reckon with the long, deep, systemic, down-to-the-bone problems. We're being forced to look at things that we've never wanted to look at. And that's all that yoga is, is looking at the things that you don't want to look at. And ultimately, come hell or high water, accepting them." Story continues Workman Publishing
A local team of surgeons from Doha has travelled to the Somali Capital Mogadishu to perform 200 operations at one of the city’s main hospitals.
So far, 80 major surgeries have been performed (thyroidectomy, laparotomy, cholecystectomy, amputation, abdominal hernia repair, removal of abdominal tumours, hemorrhoidectomy, urinary fistula surgery, breast cancer surgery, reconstructive burn surgery, removal of benign tumours, varicocelectomy, and C-section), according to a statement from QRCS.
The ongoing mission will cover critical cases at the hospital, Dr. Abdul Razak Yousef, Director of the ‘De Martini’ General Hospital, said.
The poor health care system in Somalia is one of the biggest problems facing the country today. Somalis have been struggling with violence and conflict which has devastated the country for over three decades.
More than half of the population has no access to any health services. Moreover, the country lacks qualified doctors and the medics providing care in local hospitals are untrained to conduct surgical operations of any kind.
For that reason, doctors and medical professionals in Qatar were sent by QRCS to Somalia in a bid to help people in urgent need of healthcare and emergency surgeries.
QRCS aims to leave behind a legacy from its humanitarian trip through training the hospital’s medical staff and engaging them in the operating room. By doing so, more qualified doctors and specialists will be ready to serve their community.
This latest mission by the charity mainly aims to serve the medical needs of newly displaced people and those affected by recent conflicts located in Mogadishu and the Benaadir Region.
QRCS has been conducting health projects in Somalia for more than a decade now. Previously it helped carry out operations in several medical centers in the country including Afgooye General Hospital and Multidrug-Resistant TB Centre.
Jessamyn Stanley needs you to know what yoga is really about - and it's not the poses. In her new book Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance, the yoga instructor and body activist shares reflective personal essays that touch upon everything from racism to the cultural appropriation of American yoga, from consumerism to cannabis. And while the timing couldn't be better considering the current cultural climate, the idea for the book came to her years ago while she was writing her first book, Every Body Yoga, a guide to developing a yoga practice. "I realized yoga is a lot more than postures," she tells PEOPLE. "The postures get to be more complicated, not because you're practicing harder gymnastics or physical postures, but because you're practicing emotional and mental and really spiritual postures." In fact, she says, yoga is not supposed to feel good. Take the example of someone expecting a Zen-like experience from a yoga practice - only to be disappointed. "You're like, 'This is hard. Everyone else seems to know what they're doing. I am not good enough, I shouldn't be doing this, maybe my body is supposed to look different, maybe my life's supposed to be different.' All these feelings start to come up. That's what the postures are leading you towards, is to have that experience." RELATED: Jessamyn Stanley Found Body Acceptance Through Yoga and Can Help You Do the Same Stanley has been nurturing this self-awareness in the nearly 10 years since she has been breaking barriers in the yoga world, tackling topics like fat-shaming, her queer Black identity and unattainable beauty standards. In Yoke - which means yoga in Sanskrit - she uses her own life as a a metaphor to further explore the coming together of mind and body, light and the dark, good and the bad - both on and off the mat. "I wanted to reflect on what it is to practice yoga when we are as a society being forced to reckon with the long, deep, systemic, down-to-the-bone problems. We're being forced to look at things that we've never wanted to look at. And that's all that yoga is, is looking at the things that you don't want to look at. And ultimately, come hell or high water, accepting them." Story continues Workman Publishing