Yoga_Journal_-_February_2016_USA_

COURTESY AMANDINE ROCHE

The peacekeeper

AS A UNITED NATIONS (UN) civic education

officer based in Kabul, Afghanistan,

Amandine Roche had a firsthand

view of the turmoil, terror, and trauma

that have engulfed the country and its

people for decades. In 2oo4, three of

Roche’s UN colleagues were kidnapped

in front of her office. Fearing that Roche

would be next, the UN removed her from

her post in the country that same year.

That’s when Roche began to suffer PTSD,

with symptoms that included anxiety,

nightmares, flashbacks, and stomach

pain. Then she turned to her teacher,

the Dalai Lama, for guidance, taking in

his words during a public teaching: “There

is no outer peace without inner peace.”

The words woke up Roche. “I realized

that I cannot bring peace to the world if

I do not know how to deal with my own

stress,” she says. So she spent 2oo7 and 2oo8

traveling throughout India, studying under

various spiritual teachers and practicing

hatha yoga and vipassana meditation, both

of which ultimately enabled her to heal

from her trauma and cultivate inner peace.

“These practices changed my way of serving

when I’m on mission,” says Roche. “I went

from my head into my heart, and I realized

that I need to live in true tolerance and

compassion to be a real advocate of peace.”

When the UN called Roche back to Af-

ghanistan in 2oo9 to provide civic educa-

tion, she was initially hesitant to risk her

newfound inner calm. But she did return,

and found that a daily yoga and medita-

tion practice helped her maintain inner

peace and balance—even as bombs fell

A human-rights advocate brings healing yoga and meditation

to war-torn Afghanistan. By Jessie Lucier

outside her office window and colleagues

were killed. Coworkers soon asked her for

meditation instruction, and before long

Roche was teaching meditation and asana

to her colleagues and to women in jails,

children in orphanages, and US soldiers.

In 2o 1 2, Roche became a registered

yoga teacher and decided it was time

to expand her efforts and offer more

Afghanis, especially children, the heal-

ing benefits of yoga. So she launched the

Amanuddin Foundation. (Amanuddin was

the name the Afghans gave her when she

first arrived in Kabul in 2oo 1 ; it trans-

lates to “joyful protector of peace.”) Her

mission: to bring yoga and meditation

teachings to children in the Taliban region

of Kabul and to people in jails—essen-

tially prisoners of war for crimes against

the government. The program also aims

to train Afghani citizens to become yoga

and meditation teachers and spread the

practices in their homeland. Money is also

being raised for a mobile theater drama

that will promote the legacy of Abdul

Ghaffar Khan, an advocate of nonviolence

among the ethnic Pashtuns in Afghani-

stan and Pakistan, and a close friend of

Mahatma Gandhi.

To date, the Amanuddin Foundation

has reached roughly 1 ,ooo Afghanis,

but expansion has stopped due to poten-

tial dangers. “In a country that’s never

peaceful, we’ve been able to connect with

so many hearts,” says Roche. “We’re all

born wise, and through the inner peace

achieved through yoga and meditation,

the children and people of Afghanistan

can remain in peace as they were in

the beginning.”

FROM LEFT Amandine Roche teaches meditation

to Afghani children, and to soldiers.

Sponsor a child

For $25 monthly, you can reach 350

school-aged children, who are being taught

peace and nonviolence, and help develop

a mobile theater program and a mental-

health program for those suffering from

PTSD (more than 80 percent of Afghanis).

For more information and to donate,

visit amanuddinfoundation.org.

92

february

2016

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GOOD K ARMA