Wild Wonder and Wisdom CIC – stimulating the mind, body and spirit amidst a pandemic

SSE Cornwall Fellow Kathy King from Wild Wonder and Wisdom CIC has had to overcome the challenges of running an organisation rooted in physical activity and face-to-face interaction whilst in lockdown...

Wild Wonder and Wisdom CIC is a social enterprise looking to improve mental well-being (in particular emotional literacy) in young people by inspiring them to connect with nature and each other by participating in various outdoor activities. Kathy King, the Founder, is an experienced teacher who became disillusioned with mainstream education, and has since found working with empowering alternatives such as Forest School, kayaking/SUP and sea swimming to be far more successful in tackling the growing numbers of young people disaffected from education for various mental health reasons such as anxiety, depression and social isolation.

Prior to Covid-19, WW&W was running Wild Camp Adventure Projects for young women aged 14-24 who were either NEET (not in education, employment or education) or at-risk of becoming so. As these sessions are delivered in small groups of six at a time, delivery costs can be too high for stakeholders to be able to afford, so Kathy has been working on finding a solution to this problem over and above the more usual grant application process. WW&W started to trial Wild Women’s Activity Retreats early this year for paying customers looking to develop their paddling, yoga, trail running and sea swimming skills and/or try them for the first time. WW&W are trying to create a supportive space where older women can enjoy the outdoors in different ways whilst spending time with like-minded souls with similar life experiences. 2020 was set to be an amazing year with six of these retreats planned, collaborating with amazing local businesses like Cotna Eco Retreat in Gorran, The Old Parsonage B&B and Moor to Sea Food Co. in Mevagissey. There were also plans to collaborate with SUP and Soul Retreats who usually deliver life coaching programmes in Norway. All of this has been put on hold whilst we deal with Covid-19 which has obviously prevented all communal activities like this from taking place. It will be interesting what these retreats will look like in the future but WW&W will no doubt adapt and evolve accordingly.

Ways that WW&W have already adapted is by developing an Online Eco-Nurture Group for the young women of the YEW Project (The Women’s Centre). Kathy was due to deliver Forest School Workshops and an Outdoor Adventure Half Term Project in the Spring anyway, so we have collaborated with Sophie Wire, a local yoga teacher to offer daily online sessions where we set three tasks that stimulate the mind, body and spirit. WW&W’s role is to get the young women to connect with nature in their gardens and/or whilst on their daily exercise walks, and then their feelings, emotions and any photos and videos can be shared with the group the following day. This is a pilot and if successful, we will be taking referrals for future programmes via our website www.wildwonderandwisdom.co.uk/onlineservices

Another thing WW&W has been experimenting with is an online retreat. On 1st -3rd May, we were due to deliver our retreat at Cotna Eco Retreat but obviously this got postponed, so Kathy took it upon herself to rally some friends together to put on an online version instead. We had yoga, a balance board session, cake baking, bare foot walking, dawn chorus, and a special cooked breakfast recipe to try. It was a massive success and served as a pilot for our next offering which is a much bigger and better Free Online Family Festival to be hosted by Wild Women’s Activity.

WW&W is working with 15 small - mostly Cornish - businesses some of whom are fellows of the SSE programme to deliver this unique event. There is a wide range of activities and experiences for guests to try ranging from yoga (Dharmamamma) and meditation (SUP and Soul Retreats), to Arabic Dancing (Phoenix Tattoos) and Hula Hooping (Spiffing Mushrooms Creations). Nature crafts and experiences are also on offer including creating a mandala (Nature and Me), barefoot walking and sharing the sunrise and dawn chorus together. There is no expectation to complete it all as everyone is invited to dip in and out as they feel is right for them, and a lot of the activities will be available on the Facebook for future use if they cannot attend in real-time.

Wild Wonder and Wisdom CIC

07949 079150

https://www.facebook.com/wildwonderandwisdom/www.wildwonderandwisdom.co.uk

https://www.instagram.com/wildwonderandwisdom/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathy-king-wildwonderandwisdomcic/