Trustee (Chairman)

John worked as a public servant and policy consultant for two decades before training as a yoga teacher.

John has taught in Mt Eden and Auckland South prisons, as well as regular teaching in corporates and a local yoga studio.

When not teaching yoga, John coordinates volunteers to provide literacy tuition and other programmes to prisoners, is chair of the board of a tertiary education provider and attempts to parent his teenage son.

Trustee

Adhyatma founded YEPT in 2009 and has taught in various prisons around Aotearoa since 2007. She has spent many years seeing through the everyday administration of the trust, correspondence, trustee and management teams meetings, supervision for teachers and volunteers, newsletter editing, fundraising, grant applications and maintaining relationships with supporters.

She works passionately to establish free yoga and meditation classes in all prisons in NZ, to support prisoners friends and whanau, and to support released prisoners once they are back out in our community.

Adhyatmas vision is to support a peer led instructor program where prisoners teach prisoners.

Trustee

Adele joins us from a 12 year career in public relations spanning corporate, public sector and not-for-profit. Moreso, she’s a dedicated yogi, teacher, and teacher of teachers. She discovered yoga in her mid-twenties when she was suddenly diagnosed with advanced stage bowel cancer.

Suddenly her world as she knew it was no more, and it was when she was bed-ridden trying to navigate her way through chemotherapy that she first explored yoga in the form of meditation and breath-work. Yoga has been a daily part of her life since. It had such a powerful impact on her that it compelled her to teach, and she completed her first teacher training eight years ago.

Adele’s big dream is to run teacher training programs in prisons.

Trustee

Jasmin has a rich and diverse background in yoga with her primary focus in Classical Hatha & Tantra. She lived, trained and taught for several years of full immersion in Ashrams, Centres and Monasteries in India, Nepal, Canada and New Zealand.

Being a free-spirited yogi for so many years, Jasmin surprised many, but mostly herself, when she moved back to her hometown for love, got married and had two beautiful children.

Jasmin loves to share yoga with people from all walks of life. She weaves a synthesis of Yoga into her classes, combining asana, pranayama, mindfulness + meditation, philosophy, chanting, mudra and mantra to summon magic into the moment.

As well as being a board member with YEPT, Jasmin has taught at Otago Prison and Studio Tula, and offers workplace yoga, workshops, courses and one – to – ones privately. She also works as a consultant in the areas of strategy, sustainability and ethics.

Trustee

Christine is passionate about giving back and with a past brief association with YEPT through another fundraising charitable trust, Christine reached out to us in 2024.  

Her career having spanned, interior design, retail leadership, appliance manufacturing/distribution and more recently not-for-profit, is commercially and customer centred and with specific interest in wellbeing and sustainability in organisations.  

Now, wanting to support YEPT in its work to positively change the outcomes for prisoners and in particular reducing recidivism, her skillset compliments those of the other trustees. Focusing on fundraising/sponsorship and strong governance for the trust, Christine seeks to support the great value the YEPT team offer to this little known and important programme and hopes to see the reach and scale of said programmes grow,  making a tangible impact.goes here

Finance Officer

Heather had worked and volunteered in the Not-for-Profit sector, including youth work, disabilities, and the arts here at home and overseas, alongside a small business background. I live on a rural lifestyle block with my family, 2 dogs, 13 sheep, and 7 chickens in semi-retirement from the busyness of the world.

She gardens, plant trees and volunteers for a heritage and two environmental organizations, and weaves (raranga) in a local artist and crafters collective.

Working with YEPT as Finance Officer allows Heather to contribute to the well-being of people through this wonderful modality of yoga, meditation, and awareness.