November 2023

In March 2022 Edinburgh Community Yoga’s Outreach Director, Lorraine Close applied for project funding to the Activate Fund. The Churchill Fellowship is a community of 3,800 changemakers developing new solutions for the UK’s most pressing problems. A key focus for us is to support the impact they are making in their communities and sectors across the UK.  Currently it offers one-off grants of £10,000-30,000 for Fellows to implement the findings of their Fellowship.

Lorraine was successful in obtaining funding via the Churchill Fellowship’s Activate Fund to develop a six month programme of yoga based education for women affected by trauma in recovery from substance use – the Action Scholarship Programme (ASP). In this time period, she was also awarded a Queen’s Nurse title from the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland, a leadership programme and award that she never would have applied for had she not completed the Churchill Fellowship.

The funding was used to develop a six month programme of yoga based education for women affected by trauma in recovery from substance use – the Action Scholarship Programme (ASP).

In 2020, the first round of Activate grants awarded £101,000 to seven Fellows for projects ranging from rural care services to ocean pollution. In 2021, the second round awarded just over £524,000 to 21 Fellows for projects ranging from young people’s wellbeing to sustainable food. In 2022, the third round awarded £590,688 to 22 Fellows for projects ranging from neonatal care to support for migrants.

Lorraine says “Healing takes time and the journey is not always smooth, but the practice of yoga is a practice of a lifetime and we hope women, whether they choose to become yoga teachers or not, develop skills and tools that can support them to experience more wellbeing and better health through the rest of their lives”.

You can read more from Lorraine HERE