CELEBRATING SEA CHANGE YOGA'S 2023 YTT SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS: ALFINE & JASMINE
Sea Change Yoga offers 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training scholarships to facilitate opportunity and promote equity within the yoga and wellness communities. We are so excited to announce this year's amazing scholarship recipients, Alfine Nathalie and Jasmin Vasquez! Alfine is a passionate Holistic Health Coach who holds a wealth of knowledge in holistic health, naturopathic medicine, and media and communications. Jasmine is an activist and artist who is an avid believer in the transformative properties of yoga.
We are honored to welcome Alfine and Jasmine to the Sea Change family!
Alfine Nathalie (she/her/hers) is a Portland, Maine-raised Holistic Health Coach, Speaker, and Wellness Enthusiast. With years of academic study in the areas of media & communications, holistic health, and naturopathic medicine, Alfine finds herself excitedly exploring ways to use modern technology and social media to further the message, practices, and culture of self-acceptance, communal care, and natural living. Yoga was introduced to Alfine at a young age by way of a spiritually inclined father who had an assortment of books by various yogi-authors. Though her personal practice wouldn’t begin until her later adolescence, it felt clear early on that Yoga was a valuable system that could aid one’s physical, mental, and spiritual evolution. With the awareness that Asana is just one branch of a larger 8-limb system of Yoga, Alfine looks forward to finding engaging and applicable ways to disseminate the gems present in the larger system.
As a first-generation immigrant woman of African descent, Alfine is honored to be a part of a growing population of yoga practitioners that are helping to diversify the field of yoga and connect with participants who might otherwise be dismissive of this sacred ancient practice. She intends to host online and in-person classes that help people tap into a state of rejuvenation, refuge, and rest.
Jasmin Vasquez (she/her/hers) is an activist, an artist, and a lifelong learner. She is currently a behavioral health professional and a student at The University of Maine Augusta where she is an interdisciplinary student with an emphasis in art, counseling, and social justice. She discovered yoga over 10 years ago when it transformed her life. As a first-generation American, she found it hard to understand where she belonged, but the yoga studio became her safe space and her home. While studying at UMA she discovered trauma-informed yoga and she realized how important it is to make something that can transform so many lives accessible for those that need it most. She has seen and experienced yoga change so many lives and she wants to be a part of that change. She hopes to recreate that safe space that she found when there weren't any other safe spaces for her.