A local yoga teacher has dedicated hours to teaching yoga and meditation to residents of a Kenyan slum, from her peaceful Hāwea Flat studio.

Kate Wolfe of Dome Yoga Hāwea has been teaching yoga via Zoom to teachers at a school in Kibera - the third largest slum in the world, in Nairobi.

“It’s beautiful. To share yoga with them is such a treat,” Kate said.

“They’ve become like my family. The children from the school are very curious and sometimes I see them peeking in to watch the teachers practicing yoga - it’s really cute.”

The Saturday sessions she has run for the past year have had an impact not only on the teachers but the wider community, she said.

“Previously for us it was just work, eat and sleep,” one of Kate’s students said in an online video about the programme.

“Practices like yoga and going to the gym never crossed our minds one bit… Here in Kenya practices like yoga are considered to be for the rich, that’s because they are really expensive.”

“Attending Miss Kate’s sessions has really helped me personally, I feel more flexible even in doing my daily work,” she said, adding that yoga helps “in calming the body and mind”.

“[Miss Kate] is an amazing instructor, very gentle with her words, and she answers all our questions.”

Kate became involved through the Global One Foundation - a non-religious organisation - which runs the Kibera school and offers meditation training alongside other education programmes and the provision of meals.

Kate said it was “really cool how it’s unfolding, and now we’re sharing it with the community”.

This Saturday (September 27) she will be holding an open session for the whole school community in Kibera. 

“I taught the teachers and they taught the learners, and this Friday at 8pm we will go live and do a session for all the adults, including all the parents,” she said.

Kate is also planning to undertake some fundraising yoga sessions for the school and the community over the next few months, and is looking for interested yogis to help her run these.