My name is Cameron and I am the founder of The Balanced Soul Project. I first discovered yoga in eighth grade, when COVID first hit and I found myself – like everybody else – stuck at home, isolated, and with increasing anxiety levels. 

 

I began taking a virtual class and was amazed at what it did for my mental health. It didn’t take long for me to recognize the power that yoga has to help people. When I started high school, I joined my school’s Civic Education program, designed to help freshmen navigate their way through high school. Through discussions there, I realized that many of my peers were also facing stress, anxiety and other mental health challenges. I knew that yoga could help.

 

In the Spring of 2022, I completed my yoga training through Budding Buddhas and got my certification to teach children’s yoga. I am now an advisor to the Civic Education program at my school guiding incoming freshmen as my advisors had previously guided me. I recently completed a research mentorship with a Columbia University graduate student exploring the behavior, contributions of, and perceptions of women in groups, and am currently participating in an independent study at my school on the psychology of group behavior. I believe that yoga can help women in particular build confidence in the workplace, and in navigating social interactions in general. 

I’m also a Fellow of Kol Koleinu, an advocacy program for feminist teens dedicated to facilitating discussions about gender based problems and how to create solutions, a member of humanitarian group Women for Women, and Jewish advocacy program Leaders For Tomorrow, which works to fight antisemitism and other social injustices. I’m a contributor to the advocacy website Being Anti-Sexist and recently wrote about the ground-breaking agreement reached by the U.S. Soccer Federation in 2022 to equalize pay between the Women’s and Men’s U.S. Soccer Teams.