Youth Yoga  

Building resilience, growing confidence, finding steady ground.

Supporting wellbeing for young people in Golden Bay.

In 2021, we partnered with Golden Bay High School and Anahata Yoga Health and Education Trust to offer a year-long Youth Yoga programme for local students.

Funded by the Lottery Grants Board, the programme offered a quiet, nourishing space during school hours—providing weekly trauma-informed yoga sessions including mindful movement, breath, and relaxation practices—at no cost to participants in our rural community.

The programme concluded in 2022, leaving a meaningful legacy of wellbeing, confidence, and self-awareness among its participants.

Its impact continues to inspire us, and we remain open to conversations with schools and organisations interested in bringing mindfulness and somatic practices to young people.

Students explored tools for emotional regulation, focus, and self-awareness.

They often noticed:

  • Increased confidence and self-motivation

  • Sharper focus and creativity

  • A sense of inner calm

  • Progress toward meaningful personal goals

  • Healthier connections and boundaries

  • Improved physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing

  • Greater embodied awareness and self-understanding

  • A more mindful and caring relationship with themselves and the world

This programme was a heartfelt success—reflecting how accessible mindful somatic practices can meaningfully support young people’s wellbeing.

  • “Starting yoga over the past year has opened my eyes. During classes, I notice how calm and centred I feel and over time the improvement has started to show. I feel the importance of doing a simple yoga practice daily or once a week. A time to step away from everyday life and reconnect.”

    — Hinewai Lewis

    Golden Bay High School student

  • “Priyadhara has developed authentic and meaningful relationships with the rangatahi that attend her classes—she has created a reliable, safe and nourishing space for rangatahi to learn and develop new skills as well as deepen their awareness of their own ways of being with themselves and others. Priyadhara provides an opportunity for rangatahi to reset and step away from the chaotic nature of the school day.”



    — Abbey Gilligan

    Golden Bay High School Counsellor

  • “My daughter has been attending yoga classes from the beginning. Of greatest benefit to her is the ability to relax and unwind from the tensions of life. The breathing and ability to self-calm are of great benefit to her. Weekly classes have helped her to be more attuned to her emotions and cope with the stress of daily life.”

    — Katrina Robbie, Teacher

  • “This free yoga programme was introduced to Golden Bay High School as an additional tool to improve the overall health and wellbeing of our students. Students who have been regularly attending classes have reported a sense of peace and spaciousness, and possession of a tool with which they can use at home.”


    — Linda Tame

    Former Golden Bay High School Principal

With gratitude for our sponsors who made this programme possible:

Logo for Anahata Yoga Retreat in New Zealand, featuring a meditating figure with a glowing heart inside a gold circle, and text indicating it's a Charitable Health & Education Trust.
Logo of the Lottery Grants Board with colorful lottery balls and the text 'Fund Your Community'.
Logo of Golden Bay High School with a large green wave and a bird in flight, green background.