What's the first thing that comes to your mind
when you think about a prison,
or jail,
or any correctional facility?
And what's the first thing that comes to your mind,
when you think about a monastery or a convent?
The image you're seeing on the screen
is a drawing about a utopia.
In 2013, as an environmental engineer,
I was involved in the conception of a building
that dealt with the rehabilitation of an old oil platform
in the sea outside of San Francisco, California.
The idea and the form how we restructured this project was based on the poetry
of seeing prisons as places for the transformation of the brain.
This prison was in the middle of the sea, so it didn't need walls.
The ocean itself created enough isolation
that prisoners needed to have to rethink their lives,
to increase their conscience, depending on the acts they had committed.
But that was a utopia.
A project that was awarded prizes but didn't go ahead
and this is the reality.
A few years ago I had an opportunity
to visit two prisons in the Americas.
On your left side, you can see the prison Garcia Moreno, in Quito, Ecuador.
And on the right, Tepic, Mexico, Nayarit.
I visited the prison in Tepic
because two friends had been unjustly incarcerated.
I remember when I arrived at the prison,
and looked at that enormous space,
prisoners walking about and all the time they had in their hands.
I remember talking to my friends,
inspiring them, taking books to them so they could practice yoga,
practice meditation and make the most of the countless time they had,
while they waited to go to trial.
For 18 years, yoga has been in my life.
Yoga is a philosophy that integrates
the three large components of what it means to be a human being:
our minds, our bodies and our spirits.
Yoga works as a philosophy that covers the mental part.
It works as a physical exercise
and, as the science that goes to the physical side, also our bodies.
It is also an art,
and helps us see the qualities and essences of our spirit better.
So, the idea that we got this prize for,
is about creating a national program,
a platform that may gather all yoga teachers
who may be interested, so they feel inspired
to teach in a prison.
Certified yoga and meditation teachers
who are experienced and may bring
the benefits of these techniques to prisons in Portugal.
So, we distributed teachers across staggered time plans
so they can go there weekly and so we may create a program
that will help social reinsertion,
to their physical transformation, their mental and brain transformation.
It's true that most prisoners
suffer from some kind of trauma
that took place in their childhood or their adolescence,
or even in their adulthood.
And many times these unprocessed traumas
lead them to commit criminal acts,
or that, at the very least, are unlawful in their countries.
So, we want to teach yoga as a tool
that will help prisoners
to have a relationship with their bodies
and improve that relationship.
Reestablishing the connection between body, mind and spirit,
so they may manage their emotions better.
So, we can look at the individual as something complete, holistic.
This way, by increasing this sensitivity,
we are able to look at others in another way,
to increase our empathy with others,
increase our compassion and reduce, ideally, the cycle of violence.
Logically, it is also about dealing with vice.
Yoga gives us techniques that we can use on the mat
and also out of it.
We can use them in class, or outside class
and we can integrate all the dots in our lives.
That's the idea and here's the transformational value of yoga.
During class, one only listens and practices what the teacher suggests.
But it is in our daily lives that we can really see
that these tools will help us deal
with our emotions and stress
and how we deal with life.
I suppose you have an idea about the many benefits.
Yoga helps relieve stress, helps increase attention,
focus, concentration.
It gives us strength and physical health.
When we feel better and stronger with our bodies
we will also feel stronger with our self-esteem and our minds.
Our thoughts become clearer, and so much more.
There are many case studies of success worldwide.
I studied projects in several states of the USA,
in China, in France, and other countries of the EU.
The results are fantastic.
The idea was to bring yoga and meditation
as a practice to help with social reinsertion,
to give a new perspective on life to these people
who need to be in their "compulsory retreat"
and help them realize that they can change,
they can transform, and can do something better with their lives.
Meditation helps us to see things as they are
and yoga is, without a doubt, the path to freedom
when we can see ourselves as a whole being.
Thank you.
(Applause)