29 March 2023

By Vidyamala Burch 

In this blog, Breathworks Co-founder Vidyamala celebrates Tareshvari (Tish) Robinson, a Breathworks accredited teacher, who recently raised a whopping £1,000 for Breathworks in her 60th birthday fundraiser.

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We founded Breathworks with the aim of reducing global suffering by helping people with pain, illness and stress to live fuller lives through mindfulness and compassion training. We believe this support should be equally accessible to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.  Each year, our charity awards bursary and scholarship places to those whose financial or health circumstances would have otherwise prevented them accessing our 8-week courses and Teacher Training programme. This is one of the most rewarding things we do; using the profits we generate to help others. Two such examples include Elsa and Peter, you can read their heartwarming bursary stories here.

 

Of course, in order to continue with this important work, we are reliant on the support and generosity of others. In this blog, we celebrate Tareshvari (Tish) Robinson, a Breathworks accredited teacher, who recently raised a whopping £1,000 in her 60th birthday fundraiser.

Tareshvari is one of the founders of the innovative Take Back Your Life (TBYL) project, which adapted our signature Mindfulness for Health programme for communities with lower incomes, language and literacy levels. When interviewed about her fundraiser, Tareshvari spoke about how she wanted to give back to Breathworks, who funded the second pilot course when they were really stuck for funding.

"It's great to give the opportunity to someone else who might be stuck and would benefit from that money," she said.

"I feel huge gratitude for Breathworks. The TBYL work has been so life-affirming. It’s really helped my local community, but also given me a vocation that is more rewarding and satisfying, and interesting than anything I’ve ever done before.

"Rather than presents, I wanted to ask for donations to a meaningful cause. I publicly appealed for £50, but secretly hoped for £1,000. It feels wonderful to have met that. A real achievement. Thank you to the generosity of so many wonderful people."

Tareshvari encourages others to follow in her footsteps and host their own fundraisers for causes they care about: "Be bold. If you don't ask, you don't get! You're not asking for yourself, you're asking to help good being done in the world so why not?" 

SUPPORTING YOUNG ADULTS AT RISK

The incredible sum raised by Tareshvari will go towards funding a Teacher Training scholarship for an individual from Boxing and Mindfulness (BAM), a London-based innovation that 'fuses boxing and mindfulness to help young carers and young at-risk individuals get mentally and physically fit.' The project won the inaugural Innovations in Mindfulness Awards in 2022 (of which TBYL was also a  finalist). You can find out more about BAM here. 

Tareshvari said:

"It's a brilliant project that deserves all the funding it can get. Young men are killing themselves. There's not a lot of help for young men. I'd love to give this opportunity to another very worthy project.

 "Awards and success are momentary, people who succeed the most are the people who fail and keep going. Shoot for the moon, land among the stars. If you have an idea, and it’s going to help people, what have you got to lose?"

NEXT FUNDRAISING EVENT

We already have another amazing fundraising event offered by Ruth Cheesley (one of the Breathworks Charity trustees) who is doing Endure24, a 24 hour trail run. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, she is also doing it while living with Ehlos Danlers Syndrome, a genetic connective tissue disorder. 

Please consider supporting Ruth here.

START YOUR OWN FUNDRAISER

Inspired to support our charity? Why not set up your own fundraiser? It’s easy to do and we can provide you with a page on our charity site. Contact us at [email protected] to learn more.