Bio
I’m currently writing and working on a community project with Grenfell women.
I’ve practiced meditation and yoga since 1999 and for 11 years ran a charitable organisation I founded in London called OURMALA. I also have a background in strategic communications consultancy in sustainable development with Rio Tinto.
After starting off my career in literary agencies, I worked as a writer and editor with Rio Tinto. I left in 2008 to study meditation and yoga in India.
Rio Tinto asked me back as a consultant, which I did until 2015 in the areas of cross-sector biodiversity partnerships, working towards net positive impact, and global security and human rights.
At the same time, I set-up a project in Hackney, where I lived, for refugee and aylum-seeking women who were pregnant or with young babies, either destitute or facing destitution. It took place at Hackney City Farm in partnership with the British Red Cross and our first offering was a welcoming safe space with therapeutic yoga and a hot lunch (with cost of travel refunded + everything for free to enable access).
Our work expanded across London and further afield with women, men, young people, children and babies, all seeking refuge or international protection. Most had experienced war, persecution, human trafficking or other cruelty, modern day slavery, sexual violence and torture.
The project became a charity called OURMALA as ‘mala’ in Sanskrit means garland and yoga is based on the premise that everything is interconnected.
I ran the charity but always continued teaching, which I loved. I also trained hundreds of yoga teachers and health professionals in this work.
It was a privilege to work with all of the service users, volunteers, staff and supporters.
In 2019, the NHS asked if we could adapt the yoga programme to support survivors and bereaved from the Grenfell Tower fire and others in the community who had been affected. It was an honour to lead this project and teach in the community.
I hold a Diploma in Global Mental Health: Refugee Trauma & Recovery from Harvard Medical School, an MA in Creative Writing and a two year 500 Hour Diploma in Yoga Teaching with The British Wheel of Yoga, the UK’s national governing body of yoga.
During my time at OURMALA, the charity was recognised as a centre of excellence by the national governing body of yoga, the British Wheel of Yoga, and became the first ever European non-profit partner of global retailer lululemon.
I sat on the board of the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance, took part in the first meetings of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Yoga and was asked to Chair the development group for National Standards for Yoga.
Today, I live between London and Wiltshire with my husband and dog, and love nature, the outdoors, reading, writing, the arts, horse riding, Eastenders and family time.
Qualifications:
Diploma in Global Mental Health: Refugee Trauma and Recovery (Harvard Medical School)
Breath-Body-Mind Teacher Training Level 1 & shadowing its founders in the US
Specialist training certifications working with yoga and stress, anxiety and PTSD; also with refugees, asylum-seekers through the British Red Cross Refugee Services and with The Samaritans
Yoga Teacher 500 Hour Diploma (British Wheel of Yoga, the UK’s National Governing Body of Yoga)
Extended study trips to The Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute (3-4 months each)
Silent Vipassana meditation retreats (duration 1 day to 30 days)
MA in Creative Writing & BA English Language & Literature (Sheffield Hallam University)
I’ve worked with yoga and the NHS since 2010. I was a founding member of The Yoga in Healthcare Alliance and board member, and was involved in the first All Party Parliamentary Group for Yoga meetings in Westminster.
My yoga teaching background includes work in London, Europe, India, South Africa and the US.
