Kisima Practitioners

We bring different perspectives to the table, but we’re united by a love for purposeful work, thoughtful design, and real connection.

Mugisha Ali Allan

Mugisha is a Pan-African wellness activist, Teaching Artist, and yoga teacher with a foundation in yoga philosophy, breathwork, anatomy, and mindfulness. He has guided individuals and communities through embodied practices rooted in ancestral wisdom and holistic vitality. He is the curator of Liberation Body Work and lead curator of TAI Tours.

Liberation Body Work is an embodied wellness practice integrating Thai Massage, Qi Gong, Nei Gong, Taoist meditation, breathwork, and yogic philosophy.
Rooted in ancestral wisdom and mindful anatomy, it releases tension, restores energetic flow, and awakens inner vitality.
Through conscious touch and breath awareness, participants experience resilience, softness, strength, and embodied freedom.
Aerial Yoga combines traditional yoga with the support of a suspended fabric hammock, allowing you to explore movement, stretching, strengthening, and gentle inversions with greater ease. The hammock supports the body, helping to decompress the spine, improve mobility, build confidence, and bring a playful sense of freedom to your practice.
This is a playful practice that introduces children to yoga through movement , mindfulness and imaginative exploration. Using music and simple postures it also helps develop balance, coordination, focus, emotional regulation and body awareness and confidence.

Walakira Ephraim

Walakira is a professional dance performer, instructor, educator, and choreographer. Over eight years he has developed a focused practice, mastering diverse styles that shaped his technique. A committed team player, he learns from fellow professionals and builds strong social and professional connections locally, across continents, and culturally around the world.

.It is a unique dance fitness/ workout that combines modern dance with traditional cultural dances, aiming to uplift souls, stress relieve, fun, laughter, sweat out, workouts, strength building, connecting, good health and mental well-being.
Live African Drums/Percussion and song bring to life the spirit Ubuntu, togetherness and joy of the African Roots rhythms to help build a health body, environment and energy.
This is a fusion of African dance styles within contemporary dance.

Sister Tibebwa

Sister Tibebwa is a healer, guide, and mother figure based in East Africa for over 25 years. She works with the edges between shadow and light, body and spirit, masculine and feminine, weaving herbs, wise words, detoxing, yoga, Tantric arts, nutrition, pleasure, trauma release, community healing, and regeneration.

Playshop on exploring Consent and Agreement, and learning how to embody a deeper overstanding of the differences between Giving and Receiving and Allowing and Taking.
In this Playshop we will dive deeper into the heart and feel the metamorphosis of pure potential that resides therein.
Masculine and Feminine energies reside within us all. In this Playshop we will learn about, witness and begin the healing of our wounded Masculine energy.

Melissa Mbithe Kioko

Melissa Mbithe Kioko is a Kenyan licensed psychotherapist and founder of Mindful Psychotherapy Services. With six years' experience, she integrates talk therapy, mindfulness, and somatic healing, drawing on clinical practice and African communal traditions. She specialises in trauma, attachment, and grief, while advocating for equitable mental healthcare for marginalised communities.

An immersive, trauma-informed breathwork journey that guides participants from the inside out; beginning with gentle grounding and breath awareness, moving into the places within us that have closed off to love, and softening them through compassionate presence
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An accessible psychoeducational talk exploring how early attachment wounds and unresolved trauma quietly teach us to guard our hearts, and what it looks like to begin returning to love from that place. Drawing on attachment theory, trauma-informed practice and African communal healing wisdom
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A playful, embodied session that helps children identify, name and move with their big emotions using storytelling, simple body-awareness cues and expressive movement. Children discover that all feelings are welcome, that their bodies are wise, and that they already hold the tools they need to find calm.

Abigail Leah Sage

A yoga teacher, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) trainer, and mediator, she blends intelligent movement, nervous system awareness, and compassionate communication. She creates warm, honest spaces where people feel safe to reconnect with their bodies, cultivate inner strength, and foster deeper, more authentic connections with themselves and others.

It is a dynamic, rehabilitative and functional movement practice, building strength, mobility and adaptability. Using movement science and neuroscience to rewire the communication between brain and body. Also known as LYT Method.
Nonviolent communication is a tool that’s used in conflict resolution, mediation, coaching, schools, organisations, prisons, social change and personal healing. A paradigm shift in how we communicate with ourselves and with others that cuts through all conflict and creates a sense of connection, choice and presence.

Jordan Filko

Originally from the United States and based in Kenya for 15 years, Jordan has practised yoga for over 15 years and taught for seven. Certified in Baptiste Power, Vinyasa, and Yin Yoga, she also integrates expressive arts therapy, creating inclusive, nature-inspired spaces for healing, creativity, and authentic connection.

Will explore the festival theme, individually and in community, through creative play that may involve one or more modalities including visual arts, movement, writing, music, ritual/ceremony and nature. By engaging the imagination we gain a different perspective and through creativity connect with our ability to create the life we want.

Jaini Nitinkumar Shah

Jaini Shah is a certified Rapid Transformational Therapist, WILDFIT Coach, and Food Relationship Coach who helps people heal their relationship with food, body, and mind. Inspired by her own recovery from burnout and Hashimoto's, she blends mindful eating, food psychology, and subconscious transformation to create lasting health and freedom.

A powerful session exploring why self-love is essential and how it shapes our thoughts, choices and overall happiness. A deep dive into rewiring negative self-talk and shifting limiting beliefs with Rapid Transformational Therapy-style self-love meditation to help reprogram the subconscious mind and instill a deep sense of worthiness and confidence.
A mindful eating experience exploring how we use food for comfort and love and what that means about our emotions and food. Creating awareness to understand what emotions are at play and how to love ourselves without having to rely on food.
Empowering kids through interaction and activities to instill self-confidence and love from a young age and empowering self-talk.

REBEKAH Sauder

Teaching yoga since 2010, Rebekah combines a Master's degree in chemical engineering with extensive yogic training, including 10 months in India, teachings with the Dalai Lama, and 122 days of silent meditation. Blending science with inner awareness, she helps students explore the profound connection between body, mind, and consciousness.

This back bending focussed session invites you to notice, soften, and remain present with whatever unfolds.
Breath and meditation centered in the heart space, incorporating gentle chanting of YAM, the mantra of the heart
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A slow, meditative yin practice focused on softening the chest, shoulders, and upper back, inviting deep rest and emotional ease.

Zoe Goodman & Nelson Githuku

Zoë Goodman is an anthropologist and facilitator exploring wellbeing and collective care through creative, embodied methods with King's College London and Rebellious Care. Nelson Githuku is a theatre maker, writer, director, and facilitator with over 17 years' experience, bringing expertise from Kenyatta University's School of Performing Arts.

Paarticipants will share everyday rituals that they use to return to themselves and the earth. Using these rituals as core content, we will then work together to create a short theatre piece celebrating oneness in and with the earth.
Participants will be invited to surface challenging dynamics in their intimate relationships. We will then use Theatre of the Oppressed to identify avenues to connection and transformation.
We will use sock puppets in theatre games, songs and chants to infuse joy, laughter and oneness with kids
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Genevieve Paul’s Marie nanji

Born in Mauritius and based in Kenya for over 40 years, Genevieve left a career in travel to follow a more purposeful path. A Level 2 Reiki practitioner, she expresses herself through dance and music, and recently began offering one-day retreats in Mauritius, sharing healing and connection with her homeland.

Kundalini yoga is a Powerful practice that combines breath,movement and meditation to help you unlock your true potential . Power of the naad we will chant mantras to help us raise our frequency ,vibrate at a higher level

Shayur Shah

Shayur is a lifelong student of meditation and Indian spirituality with extensive formal training in contemplative practices. Founder of Ecstatic Dance Kenya, he has facilitated transformative experiences for over three years, weaving meditation, cacao, music, movement, Contact Improvisation, kirtan, and nature into spaces of connection, presence, and joyful transformation

A guided free-form dance journey that invites deep connection to self, body, music and community. Moving through a wave of global rhythms, participants express, release, and expand in a safe, non-judgmental space. No steps to follow—just authentic movement
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A meditative, heart-centered practice blending simple movements, live music, and sacred chants from diverse traditions. Participants are guided in circle dances that cultivate connection, presence, and a sense of unity.
A meditative, heart-centered practice blending simple movements, live music, and sacred chants from diverse traditions. Participants are guided in circle dances that cultivate connection, presence, and a sense of unity.

Felix Njiru Musembi

With nearly 15 years in movement, training, and coaching, Felix is passionate about helping people explore movement with curiosity, joy, and self-expression. His training includes Ashtanga Vinyasa, Kundalini Yoga Level 1, Pilates, and Yoga Angels Foundation teacher training, integrating Iyengar and Vinyasa approaches into an embodied, playful practice.

A playful and fun way to express your body in new ways while releasing tightness and tension from the body (and mind) as we explore animal like movement and body
locomotion together as a group and community of explorative mover
s.

Narissa Allibhai

With eight years as a holistic wellness practitioner, Nari is a sound healing artist, facilitator, and founder of Sound Healing Africa. Trained in Nepal, she blends Nada Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, Hatha yoga, pranayama, bansuri, singing bowls, gongs, and other instruments to create deeply restorative, nature-inspired healing experiences.

A journey through various healing sounds to relax, release blockages, and harmonise body, mind and energy. We will activate and cleanse the chakras, and journey deep within ourselves and beyond the material realm to uncover what our higher selves, subconscious or spirit guides wish to show us.
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Tulsi Padia

An Indian-Kenyan yoga teacher, Tulsi recently completed her 200-hour teacher training in Rishikesh after a lifelong practice rooted in Iyengar yoga. She teaches at her gym, hosts weekly home classes, and is preparing to move to Nairobi to share the philosophy and transformative practice of yoga more widely.

Hatha Yoga is a traditional practice that combines asanas and mindful awareness to cultivate strength, flexibility, balance and a steady mind. It will involve longer holds and substantial time will be dedicated to meditation and pranayama
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A slow, floor-based practice where postures are held for several minutes to gently target the body’s deeper connective tissues. With an emphasis on stillness, breath and fascia release, Yin Yoga helps improve mobility and calm the nervous system, leaving you feeling deeply rested and restored
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A grounded and accessible introduction to the ancient wisdom of the traditional yoga tradition. We will explore some teachings that have guided practitioners for thousands of years. This session will cover the foundations of yogic philosophy and the timeless principles of yoga beyond the physical practice.

Chandvi

Chandvi is a holistic trauma therapist and ceremonial space holder with over 12 years of experience. Trained in regression and art therapy, family constellations, and plant medicine facilitation, she weaves diverse healing modalities to help people reconnect with their innate wisdom, heal inner wounds, and come home to themselves.

Cacao is the medicine of the heart and together as we sit in ceremony we can amplify this energy of love which will ripple into everything and everyone around us. We will connect to our hearts, connect to our essence and bring our innate gifts to this world
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is a powerful, guided journey through symbolic death and rebirth. Through voice, reflection, witnessing, and ritual, you'll release the stories you've silently carried, surrender what no longer serves you, and reconnect with the deeper truth of who you are. Come as you are

Victor Kioko Michael

Viktor is a certified dance teacher specialising in Dancehall and Flow Movement, creating dynamic workshops that blend technique, strength, body awareness, and self-expression. Working with both children and adults, Viktor fosters confidence, creativity, wellbeing, and community, making dance an accessible, joyful, and empowering experience for participants of all levels.

Learn dancehall and flow movement with precision, expression, and body control. Focus on technique, fluidity, and building strength in movement
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Furaha - Joy Grace Ruguru

Furaha is a well-known wellness lover and music junkie, especially of Kenyan music. She met Fela at the first Kisima Festival in 2020 where he taught capoeira, an ancient African practice which combines music and dance. Since then, they have connected severally on the dancefloor as they both love to dance to African music, especially reggae music.

Fela and Furaha will lead a grounding dance session that will bring us together in love and joy on the Kisima dancefloor. We'll flow through 5 conscious reggae songs which will remind us to love ourselves, each other and nature. One love one heart, let's get together and feel alright

Safia Abji

Safia Abji is a Co-Active trained, trauma-informed coach, consultant, and curator with nearly two decades of global experience. She supports individuals and organisations through leadership, cultural transformation, and personal growth, creating immersive, psychologically safe spaces that foster self-awareness, authentic connection, courage, and lasting individual and collective change.

Through guided reflection, journaling, and meditation, participants gently uncover where and why they’ve closed to love in themselves and others. By naming these patterns in a safe, shared space, we see how love is both the absence we feel and the medicine we need.
A facilitated relational lab using structured sharing, deep listening, and consent-based connection exercises between participants. Here, love becomes a lived experience as we meet fear, vulnerability, and presence together. A collective ritual anchors the understanding that love is both what creates disconnection when absent and what restores it when chosen
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Through storytelling, movement, and simple partner activities, children explore how love feels in their bodies and actions. They learn that love is not just a feeling, but something they can give, receive, and return to when things feel hard.

Oriane Tourny Torode

Oriane has shared her passion for yoga and wellbeing for over two decades. A certified Functional Medicine Health Coach, she offers uplifting, holistic practices that help people reconnect with their bodies, calm their minds, and cultivate vibrant, sustainable health through movement, mindfulness, and an integrative approach to wellbeing.

Are you feeling functionally aligned? Functional medicine TOOLS to design your UNIQUE road for optimal health (hormones included) and find energetic balance.
Slow flow yoga infused with mindful movement to honour all that Kisima Festival has to offer. Move slowly, breathe deeply, and prepare for meditation as the sun sets over Kisima's beautiful baobab landscape, creating space for whatever comes next
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A fun and creative workshop where children become “world builders”. Using paint, collage, natural materials and playful prompts to create their own unique maps of the world they dream of. We’ll explore what makes us feel happy, safe and connected
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Hankar Sisters (Kaya and Nicole)

The Hankar Sisters, Nicole and Kaya, facilitate somatic and energetic healing experiences rooted in lived transformation. Blending nervous system regulation, shadow integration, and light language, they guide people toward deeper self-connection. Through private sessions, ceremonies, and immersive experiences, they create spaces for release, embodiment, healing, and authentic presence.

A live ceremonial experience blending somatic healing, spoken word, and light language transmission. A space where the body softens, the nervous system settles, and love is remembered as an embodied state.
Through breath, body awareness, and sound, participants are guided to gently return to themselves where love was once interrupted.
An Embodied Workshop on Capacity, Presence & Allowing Life In. A gentle exploration of what it truly means to receive. Through somatic practices, guided inquiry, partner exercises and embodied reflection, we explore the subtle ways we move away from beauty, appreciation, support, love and even ourselves
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Sahar Jamal

Sahar Jamal is an entrepreneur, ICF-certified coach (ACC), angel investor, and advocate for women’s health and economic empowerment. Inspired by her Tanzanian and Indian heritage, she has spent the past decade supporting female leadership. She is certified by the Center for Creative Leadership and holds an MBA from Northwestern University

An inclusive, community space for people to contribute their personal spiritual rituals (SpiRituals).We will come together in a circle and put an 'open-mic’ spin on traditional spiritual ceremonies by co-creating and remixing our collective practices
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This session will help participants uncover their true desires, unleash action, and unlock growth through practical coaching conversations and exercises.
Shaping our Matriarchal Future: Cultivating Divine Feminine Leadership
The world needs more feminine leadership skills (from both men and women) but most of us are conditioned to fit the molds of our current patriarchal society. What would it look like to live into our divine feminine and how would this impact society?

Elvis Waithaka Gitau and Andrew Oluoch

Teacher Waithaka is a Kilifi-based educator and storyteller creating child-centred spaces where children feel seen, heard, and free to express themselves. Through storytelling, art, play, and performance, he nurtures emotional development, creative confidence, and imagination. As the voice behind Shujaa Stories, he celebrates culture, identity, and every child's unique story.

Using simple prompts and storytelling, they learn to hear themselves and others without judgment.
A gentle art and storytelling session for children to explore their feelings, identity, and imaginatio
n.
Through drawing and guided prompts, they learn to express what they may not yet have words for.
A hands-on art space where children create freely using accessible materials.
The focus is on joy, emotional release, and self-expression—not perfection.
A guided session where children draw or write messages to people they love or miss.
It helps them process emotions gently and creatively.
Is a playful, engaging session that helps children slow down, notice their thoughts, feelings and connect with the present moment through art, movement, breathing and nature. Children build emotional awareness, confidence and creativity while having fun in a safe welcoming space.

Ricqesh Parmar

Ricqesh is a ceremonial space holder and Masculine Embodiment coach dedicated to supporting men in reclaiming healthy masculinity. Trained with The Soul of Men in the UK and initiated into masculinity in 2023, he co-founded Men of Fire Africa, helping men embody their purpose, strength, vulnerability, and authentic gifts.

A safe space for men to gather together. Through meditation, group embodiment exercises and ceremony we will come together as Tribe.

Noosim

Noosim is a Pan-African communalist, researcher, and filmmaker dedicated to creating liberatory curricula and pedagogies that foster collective healing and transformation. Noosim curated the African Communities of Healing Praxis, an innovative methodology that equips communities with practical tools for holistic liberation, resilience, cultural renewal, and collective wellbeing.

Where did the problems begin? A reflection on colonialism, alienation, ecological disconnection and the erosion of communal life as roots of many contemporary afflictions. Practice: Improvisational "human timeline" exercise and facilitated dialogue.
Where are we now? An exploration of burnout, anxiety, social isolation, commodified care and the pressures of contemporary life. Practice: Embodied group tableau and collective mapping exercise.
What futures can we imagine? A discussion on African methodologies of healing, collective care, spirituality, ecology and community self-organization as pathways toward wellbeing. Practice: Small-group future visioning, improvised scenes and dialogue circle
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Saddy and Nick

Saddy is the founder of Kaya Aerial Fitness, a certified Yoga, Aerial Yoga, and Aerial Silks instructor, performance artist, and entrepreneur with over seven years of experience in wellness and fitness. As one of the few qualified aerial instructors in Kenya, he has trained hundreds of students and performed at corporate, cultural, and private events. Through Kaya Aerial Fitness, he promotes strength, flexibility, confidence, creativity, and healthy living through movement and aerial arts.

Uses a soft hammock on yoga poses enhancing flexibility and grace
Aerial silks is a performance art and fitness discipline where artists climb, wrap, and perform acrobatics on long, suspended fabric.

Kerstin

Kerstin believes in the transformative power of connecting humans with nature and animals. As the founder of HorseBay in Watamu, she combines her lifelong passion for horses with 20 years of experience at the United Nations. Her expertise lies in embodied and intuitive transformation. Kerstin is certified in Transpersonal Coaching Psychology by the International Association of Coaches, Therapists, and Mentors (IACTM).

She will be showing us the magical world of healing with horses during the festival and a workshop in Animal Communication with Pau.

Experience the calming and restorative presence of horses in a session designed to reconnect you with yourself, nature, the community, and the present. Through observation, mindful interaction, and simple nature-based practices, participants will discover how horses help reduce stress, increase self-awareness, and create a sense of balance and inner calm.
Horses have the ability to respond to the hidden dynamics within individuals, relationships, teams, and communities. Participants will explore a question or challenge through a horse-guided constellation process. The horses act as intuitive mirrors, helping reveal what seeks attention, healing, or movement within a system.
Transformation begins when we move beyond old patterns and step into greater clarity, authenticity, and self-agency. Participants will connect deeper with the energy of the horses and will feel in, release and access a new perspective. Participants will leave with an embodied change experience
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Through guided activities, children will learn about horse communication, friendship, trust, and respect while exploring how horses express emotions and connect with the world around them. The experience includes a creative nature-inspired painting activity.
Recommended age: 5–12 years (younger children welcome with parental support).

Daniel Stoker

Danny has practised yoga for over 20 years and has taught yoga and meditation for the past decade. Initiated into Babaji's Kriya Yoga lineage in 2018, he leads community classes in Nairobi, guiding students beyond physical postures into the deeper, more subtle dimensions of yoga and meditation.

Kriya Yoga is a system of techniques (Hatha, Pranayama, Dhyana and Mantra), which bring about awareness and self realisation. The practice has enormous potential to make us more conscious human beings. The tradition from Siddhanta, was revived for today’s modern world by Babaji Nagaraj

Tamara Britten

Tamara is a 200-hour certified in Hatha/Vinyasa, and 200-hour certified in Multi-styles (SUP, Aerial and Acroyoga), and 200-hour certified in Yin Yoga.

She is the founder of Karibu Kenya, a wellness focused tour operator in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda &Tanzania.Tamara has taught yoga in Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Thailand &UK and she is one of the founder and organizers of Kilifi Wellness Festival.

We’ll start with an introduction to writing techniques. Then the group will get a prompt, and have time for free writing inspired by this. Next, we’ll look at editing skills, and the group will go deeper into their pieces, revising and honing them. We’ll finish with optional sharing and feedback.

Heather Gordon Athié

Heather is an Oxygen Advantage Practitioner, Mental Resilience Trainer, Somatic Yoga Teacher, certified Advanced Wim Hof Method Instructor, and Nutritional Health Coach. Founder of Caluna Wellness and Kisima Festival, she leads transformative retreats, trainings, and corporate programmes worldwide, helping people cultivate resilience, vitality, and lasting wellbeing through engaging, science-backed, embodied practices.

Think you Know Breathwork? This class busts a lot of breathwork myths and sets the foundations for the breathwork practices you might explore at Kisima festival. We will explore the full continuum of breathing practices, from hyperventilatory to hypoventilatory techniques and everything between. How biomechanics, chemistry, and mindset shape each approach, and learn when to apply different methods for different needs in life!

Noosim

Where did the problems begin? A reflection on colonialism, alienation, ecological disconnection and the erosion of communal life as roots of many contemporary afflictions. Practice: Improvisational "human timeline" exercise and facilitated dialogue.
Where are we now? An exploration of burnout, anxiety, social isolation, commodified care and the pressures of contemporary life. Practice: Embodied group tableau and collective mapping exercise.
What futures can we imagine? A discussion on African methodologies of healing, collective care, spirituality, ecology and community self-organization as pathways toward wellbeing. Practice: Small-group future visioning, improvised scenes and dialogue circle
.