The Auckland Tai Chi and Wellbeing Inclusive Programme

We are very pleased to announce that we have been successful in our application for the ‘Auckland Council – Regional Sport and Recreation Grants Programme 2020/2021’.

Quoted from the Regional Sport and Recreation Grants Programme Guide:

‘Auckland Council’s Regional Sport and Recreation Grants Programme supports regional sport and recreation sector organisations in their efforts to inspire and encourage Aucklanders to be more active more often.

The Grants Programme focuses primarily on enabling children and young people to participate in sport and recreation, and on providing affordable access to sport and recreation to groups with low participation numbers. These groups include Māori, people with health and wellbeing needs, and those facing other barriers, such as affordability and accessibility.’

We have selected two of our Chi Forward sets for the grant project and have named it the ‘Auckland Tai Chi and Wellbeing Inclusive Programme’, kind of gave it away in the blog post title.

The first set is the Calm, Energy, Focus Qigong. This qigong (pronounced chi-gong) has simple movements which help to combine the mind, body and the breath. It only takes a few minutes and is designed to provide movement breaks in the day for a quick reboot. All those breaks add up to being much more active throughout the week.

We created the Physical and Emotional Development Programme with a more direct focus for helping develop skills in five particular areas. These are Awareness, Balance, Coordination, Core Strength and Self-Regulation. We have been using the five sets to good effect for children who have disability and certain challenges in those areas and not only have we found the increase of activity is beneficial, it has also helped them in their daily lives with all sorts of tasks.

This grant will help us deliver a number of online access accounts to the movements and also training on how to get the most out of the programme. As part of the Chi Forward programme the participants will also have access to a community group to help connect people across Auckland. The accounts will be for Teachers, Group Leaders, Occupational Therapists and individual participants for use at home.

The Auckland Tai Chi and Wellbeing Inclusive Programme will run until July 2021 and a number of accounts are to be allocated with a spread across Auckland and will be issued via Specialist Schools and Tertiary Education centres for people with disability. Thanks to the grant – the accounts will be at no cost to the user and Tai Chi Earth will also be contributing to the programme.

It is fantastic that we can be involved with this opportunity to increase wellbeing for people with disabilities and their families/whānau in Auckland.

If you have any questions about this programme and/or tai chi and qigong for people with disabilities please use the contact form.