Yoga for Health - Manchester, East Didsbury

Aim

We want to provide mental health oriented yoga services as a form of self-care, connecting the mind and body using movement and meditation

We are Becky and Matt. We have been working towards our vision of creating an integral health centre in Manchester for the past two years. Our centre will be a safe and comfortable space offering free yoga and meditation classes for individuals with symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress to experience a holistic practice, firmly grounded in health benefits, which will include meditation and yoga movement classes. This is part of our vision to increase awareness of the alternative methods of mental healthcare that should be available to the public, and government funded. Spirit Key: Yoga for Health is our vision.

Our journey to this point has many roots...

Matt is a doctor currently working in A&E, with a special interest in improving attitudes in psychiatry. He is committed to promoting understanding of the application of yoga and meditation to help with stress, anxiety and depression. He has been practising yoga for five years and recently completed 200 hours of yoga teacher training in Ashtanga-vinyasa flow. Matt wants to alter the fallacy that yoga is a feminine practice and particularly encourages men to attend his classes, hoping to create a stronger sense of community and awareness of mental health issues in young men (for whom suicide is the leading cause of death).

Becky is a 500 hours trained yoga teacher with a special interest in yoga therapy for mental health issues. Becky has been practising yoga for five years and teaching for the past 18 months. She has observed the positive effects of the practice in her own life, helping her to move from a place of dissatisfaction working in corporate law to studying psychology and training to be an advanced yoga teacher. She would like to eventually train as a yoga therapist and psychotherapist and provide various therapies as part of the offering of Spirit Key: Yoga for Health.

Together, we are a team who are dedicated to developing accessible, inclusive and affordable yoga services in Manchester, in particular for those that are struggling with stress, anxiety and depression.

If you support our vision, and want to help us bring it to life, the money you could help us raise will pay for:

- Hiring teaching spaces to deliver free and donations based classes around Manchester (£400)

This would cover the cost of hiring a space for 8 weeks of classes specifically designed to enable people who identify as stressed, depressed or anxious to try out yoga for free or a personal donation.

-Providing free snacks, tea and drinking water for our clients (+£100)

This would allow us to encourage our clients to stay and have a chat with one another and the teacher in order to build this into a caring community. 

-Maintaining our website and other promotion costs (+£200)

We want to better promote ourselves in order to easily reach more people, both clientele and other healthcare professionals who might share our vision and help us build this community offering.

-Mats and accessories (+£1300)

We know that the cost of yoga classes can prevent access to many, and there are sometimes additional hidden costs for mat and prop hire. We would like to be able to provide all mats and props free of charge to our clients, including blocks, straps and bolsters that enable a safe and comfortable practice.

-Securing our own premises for the Spirit Key: Yoga for Health centre (+£4000)

We have identified a suitable space for our venture and £4,000 would allow us to secure this property so that we can actually open up as a health centre with a steady base for our clients.

-Transforming the space into the centre (+£1000)

Currently the space is offices, so we need to remove a partition wall and carpeting, plus give it some TLC to create an environment that we see as calming and friendly.

- Free classes for yoga prescription-holders (+£2000)

This would allow us to continue to offer free classes in our new premises. We want to be able to offer free classes to individuals who suffer with anxiety/depression or are stressed and can get an exercise/yoga prescription from their doctor. We would ideally continue to work on a voluntary basis and deliver our services for free, receiving funding from arts and sports grants and eventually even recurrent NHS funding.

-Hiring specialists in various therapeutic fields for workshops at the Spirit Key: Yoga for Health centre (+£1000)

We want to involve as many different therapeutic specialists as possible in order to continue to evolve the range of services we offer. Some of this funding will help us hire experts for free one off workshops available to our clients in our space, and some will allow our volunteer team to grow and even become trained in new therapies to share on a regular basis. 

Our total target of £10,000 will allow us to do all the above - connecting to people all over Manchester who might be struggling with their mental health, introducing them to a holistic yoga practice designed to help improve mental wellbeing, and fulfilling our dream of getting our own premises that will offer a safe and understanding space, with free yoga and other therapeutic services on offer.

Thank you for your interest, and anything you can pledge to support this vision!

This project successfully funded on 10th August 2018