Outdoors and the Holistic Nature Project

What will your donation fund?

My project is called ‘City Families in Nature’, and it’s all about the outdoors and Holistic Practices for young mothers and families.  By donating, you will be contributing to:

A weekly video documentary series, and a video podcast series, covering issues including:

• young mums, and single mums, and their children’s connection with they’re children began outdoors,
• the importance of sleep, diet and nutrition, and good mental health,
• how best to achieve balance in the face of these stressors and complexities.

Holistic Practice Workshops and sessions for young mums and families, including:

• Family nature camps & events
• Learning about grounding in nature
• Breathing practices
• Barefoot walking
• Forest bathing
• Herbal roots and teas
• Natural birthing practices

As a mother, Kwesia aspires to be a practicing doula, helping soon-to-be mothers prepare for birth, herself having experienced a most extraordinary and natural home birth.   Her passion and commitment for the outdoors and her aspirations to bring children and mothers into this healing space is an exciting opportunity for sharing and new connections.

The video and podcast series will conclude with an event that will bring together the people and the stories that would have been featured, build, and embed connections with the wider community and the opportunity for like-minded friends, partners, and organisations to join in and participate.  Most importantly to celebrate with featured speakers and creatives working towards changing the inequalities in childbirth and early year experiences for mothers and children (and young fathers too).

The Background

Taking the outdoor experience and nature to the community has been a passion for 25-year-old Kwesia. This has led to her working with a wide range of partners including The Natural History Museum, Get Birding Podcasting, The British Exploring Society, Campaign for National Parks, and Community Gardens, to name a few. She has released several documentary style videos sharing stories from record breaking polar explorers to everyday people’s lives and their connections with nature, and has featured as a guest broadcaster on several platforms including BBC Radio 4. She has most recently been sharing her interests and passions on the You tube series ‘8 out of 10 Bats’ with Chris Packham.  

Over the last few years many things have changed in the world, which has led to stress and poor mental health within communities, with children and young people being particularly impacted. Kwesia herself experienced many of these challenges during her teenage years which led to periods of hardship and depression, and much more recently, through the birth of a son, much joy and opportunities for renewal too, seeing the world around her through new eyes.

The combination of all this, and the reality of inequalities, particularly for young black mothers who have poorer birthing experiences, and more likely to die in child birth than others, has inspired Kwesia to bring awareness of the value of experiencing the outdoors as a place and space of natural healing and gratification, to bring health and wellbeing, for the whole family.

The Promise

Your donations, big and small,  will support Kwesia and her community in raising understanding and awareness of these inequalities and providing nature based solutions for families to raise happy and healthy children.