International Day Of Yoga 2022: Swami Avdheshanandji Leads Josh MASH Yoga Day Campaign

For the celebration of the 8th United Nations International Yoga Day 2022, Josh, India's fastest-growing and most engaging short-video app, and MASH Project Foundation, an award-winning social enterprise that is enabling an ecosystem for social impact, have come together with his holiness Swami Avdheshanand ji in a curated campaign #YogaForHumanity by award-winning entrepreneur and IIT D alumni, Abhinav Tandon, focussing on spreading the message of yoga amongst young Indians.

The International Day of Yoga has been organized annually on June 21 since 2015 following its inception in the United Nations General Assembly in 2014. The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in his UN address in 2014, had suggested the date of 21 June, as it is the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and shares a special significance in many parts of the world.

In order to make this celebration wider and more popular amongst the youth, Swami Avdheshanand ji launched the #YogaForHumanity challenge, from June 7-28, 2022, on the leading short video platform Josh (which has 153 million Monthly Active Users ).

As part of the challenge, users have to post a video performing their favourite yoga asanas and nominate 3 more friends to do the same. The challenge so far has received an overwhelming response from the users with more than 650 million views as of June 21.

The aim of the challenge is to celebrate the International Day of Yoga by encouraging Indians to indulge in working towards their health by performing their favorite yoga asana. The challenge aims to create a healthy community of people who are more aligned toward their fitness using the benefits of yoga.

His holiness, Swami Avdheshanand Giri ji has presided over several international conferences for climate change, yoga, and brotherhood and has regularly chaired many international forums. He is the Acharya Mahamandaleshwar of Juna Akhara, the oldest and largest order of sadhus in India. He is also a board member of the World Council of Religious Leaders. Swami Avdheshanand Giri Ji was the keynote speaker at UNO for the 'Responsible Leadership Summit' held in May 2019, in which around 200 representatives from different sections of the society from across the world participated.

This year, on Yoga Day, the Indian spiritual leader will attend a grand event organized in the heart of New York City, Times Square, per the invitation by Randhir Jaiswal, Consul General of the Indian Consulate in New York. The event is expected to be attended by thousands of yoga enthusiasts.

"Swamiji is world-renowned for his authority on Vedas and a big proponent of human values with a keen interest in spreading the message of goodness and bliss amongst the youth and we are really fortunate to get his blessings and encouragement for propagating the message of #YogaforHumanity.He wanted the activity to be simple yet powerful and this has resonated very well with the youth. We hope to reach over half a billion impressions with Yoga fervor peaking on IDY across the world and appreciate the support of all our partners especially virality partner Josh, Mash Project, and prizes partner Agatsa, the makers of World's smallest ECG device, Rapz, the leading smartwatch maker and most especially Indians across the country who have made this the most trending Yoga celebration challenge in the world unleashing the power of Digitalised India," said, Mr Tandon, Founder, WIOM, World Is One Metaverse.

Sunder Venketraman, Head - Creator and Content Ecosystem, Josh said, "It is of utmost importance that we all take care of our health and stay fit, and what better way than practicing yoga daily. With this approach, we partnered with Mash Foundation and Swami Avdheshanandji for the #YogaForHumanity campaign, and I am ecstatic by the response the challenge has received on the platform. I am thankful to Swamiji for leading the campaign and contributing to its success. Understanding the user's mindset is of grave importance to us, therefore such campaign communications help us kickstart meaningful conversations and drive awareness in the community."

With this challenge, Swami ji aims to propagate the importance of yoga, India's gift to the world, amongst youth and also take the message of yoga to the Tier 2,3,4 cities of India, which is the reason for choosing the multilingual short video platform like Josh and promote the values of a healthy lifestyle.

About MASH Project Foundation

MASH Project Foundation is an award-winning social enterprise that is building a global ecosystem for social impact. We focus on the SDG - 17, Partnerships for the Goals, and have thus created a unique model of engaging with various stakeholders including Civil Society Organizations, Corporations, Policymakers, and Media to bring them together for facilitating a higher degree of engagement and taking action towards partnerships that create greater impact and empowering youth.

About Josh

Josh is a made-in-India, short-video app launched in August 2020 by VerSe Innovation. It represents a confluence of India's top 1000+ best creators, 20000 strong managed community of creators, the 10 biggest music labels, 15+ million UGC creators, best-in-class content creation tools, the hottest entertainment formats, and formidable user demographics. Josh has been consistently rated as the leading Indian short-video app in India on the Play store with 100 million+ downloads. Josh is currently the fastest growing and most engaged short-video app in India with over 153 million MAUs (Monthly Active Users), 74 million DAUs (Daily Active Users), and 23 minutes of average time spent.