A Piece of My Soul Is Still There

My Yoga Without Borders Journey to India

By Nicoletta Fasciglione

Hello beautiful souls,

My name is Nicoletta, and I’m from Italy. I teach yoga to adults, children, and families, and this past January I had the incredible honour of joining Yoga Without Borders in India, a beautiful collaboration between Edu-GIRLS, Rainbow Yoga, and Yoga Gives Back.

This initiative brings yoga into girls’ schools in India to support not only physical well-being, but also emotional balance, confidence, connection, and mental clarity. It is a project rooted in love, service, and the deep belief that every child deserves tools for a brighter, healthier future.

For many years, I had carried a quiet dream inside me: to volunteer somewhere meaningful. I never knew when or how it would happen. Life was always full. There was always a reason to wait.

Then one peaceful morning in August, while I was on holiday, sitting in the softness of the ocean air and enjoying the stillness, I noticed an email from my teacher, Gopala, arriving from the other side of the world.

It spoke about a volunteering program in India. A girls’ school. A journey of service, growth, and connection.

That email woke something up in me more powerfully than coffee ever could.

For weeks, I held the idea in my heart.

Could I really do this?

I’m not the carefree younger woman I was when I first dreamt of volunteering. I’m a mother to a 10-year-old daughter. I’m a wife. I run my own yoga studio with more than a hundred students. I have responsibilities, routines, beloved pets, and a full life.

And yet, some dreams do not disappear. They wait. Quietly. Patiently. Until the moment is right.

So I spoke with my family. I spoke with my daughter. I even checked in with my cats. And somehow, beautifully, everything aligned. A few weeks later, I was chosen to join the second group of volunteers and spend one month teaching yoga in the heart of Firozabad, India, at Dau Dayal School.

It felt like a dream.

Not the polished, fairy-tale kind of dream. Not perfect. Not always easy. But something much more precious: real, deep, loving, and life-changing.

This experience left a mark on my heart that will never fade.

To the yoga teachers who feel the call

So this is for you.

Yes, you.

You who are reading these words.
You who have quietly imagined doing something more.
You who feel that your yoga is meant to travel beyond the walls of a studio.
You who sense that there is a bigger kind of service waiting for you.

If you ever have the chance to step away from your normal life, even for a short time, and share your practice, your heart, and your presence with children who are curious, open, kind, and full of light, take that chance.

And even if you think you cannot…
even if life feels too full…
even if, like me, you assume the moment has passed…

do not dismiss the possibility too quickly.

Sometimes the right moment arrives wearing unexpected clothes.

More than teaching

This journey was not only about giving.

It was about learning, adapting, connecting, receiving, and sharing.

It was about opening my arms and my heart to these incredible girls and meeting them in laughter, movement, trust, and joy. It was about cultural exchange in the truest sense, where everyone grows. It was about being reminded that yoga is so much bigger than poses. Yoga becomes relationship. Presence. Confidence. Healing. Possibility.

The girls of Dau Dayal School touched me deeply. Their warmth, curiosity, openness, intelligence, sweetness, and strength will stay with me forever. I had the privilege of sharing smiles, hugs, friendship, and yoga with hundreds of young girls whose future feels full of promise.

And it wasn’t only the students.

The teachers were deeply loving and supportive. The staff made the school feel like home. From the principal to the kind woman who cooked for us each day, everyone brought heart into the experience. I still miss you, Didi.

A home away from home

My gratitude overflows for President Mala and her beautiful family, who welcomed us with such generosity and tenderness. They didn’t simply host us. They embraced us as though we were their own daughters.

That kind of love stays with a person.

It changes you.

When you travel across the world to serve, you imagine that you are going to offer something valuable. And yes, you do. But what I received in return was immeasurable.

I went to India thinking I would share my light.

Instead, these girls, these teachers, these beautiful people showed me a brightness I had not seen before.

A piece of me is still there

I am home in Italy now.

Back with my family, my students, my studio, my everyday rhythm.

But a piece of my soul is still there in Firozabad.

Still breathing with those girls.
Still smiling in those classrooms.
Still held in the love, courage, and beauty of that place.

If this journey is calling you too, listen.

You may return home carrying more than memories.
You may return transformed.

I know I did.

Wishing you the same.

With love and gratitude,
Nicoletta

Join our Yoga Without Borders project here.