A Wild Peace Wellness Centre

A Wild Peace Wellness Centre

Collaboration in Westport

The DWC CO.STARTERS business course has been a hub for innovation on the West Coast. The nine-week programme has seen a range of creative ideas taking shape, becoming viable business models.

CO.STARTERS is about bringing innovative entrepreneurs together to learn from one another, and to create strong networks of support at every stage of the start-up journey. This vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem is highlighted by CO.STARTERS graduates Hannah Green and Lani Harvey who have joined forces to create A Wild Peace Wellness Centre in Westport.

Growing up, Hannah felt Westport was small and lacking in opportunities, so she left to work, travel and expand her horizons. She worked as an outdoor instructor and sea kayak guide in Marahau, before travelling overseas.

Hannah had a strong pull to come back and live on the West Coast but didn’t know how to make it possible. “I didn’t want to work in a café or supermarket”, she explains. “I knew I would always have to bring a career with me, but Westport wasn’t ready yet, and neither was I!”

While travelling Hannah found her path teaching yoga. She taught yoga in Perth for a year and then landed a job teaching yoga in a Ski Resort in Victoria. Hannah planned a three week visit back home to Westport to pick up her ski gear before continuing to Melbourne.

To pay for her visit home, Hannah hosted an ‘Achieving Dreams’ yoga workshop in Westport. The response was amazing. “I could feel after 8 years of living away, Westport had started to change”, she says. “The town was ready for some new, fresh energy. An atmosphere that suited the natural environment and worked alongside the beautiful healing properties of the Wild West Coast.”

“My plans slowly changed as I extended my stay in Westport”, says Hannah. Within three months she went from teaching yoga to the Kiwi Experience Bus in a spare room at Bazil's Hostel and Surf School to teaching at the 24hr Fitness Centre, to a pop-up studio at Yellow House Catering to having her own studio space on the main street of Westport.

Within this time, she heard about the CO.STARTERS programme being run by Buller REAP and EPIC Westport. “I thought I knew everything and didn’t need to do a business start-up course”, she says. “My goodness, now looking back I am so happy I said yes!”

“The incredible support from the facilitators and all the other students is honestly priceless. To know everyone else is going through, has been through, or is about to go through the same hurdles, highs and lows is comforting”, she explains. “It helps make every sweet, tear and inch of hard work worthwhile. I learnt so much on the course and I am still learning every day.”

Progress is happening fast now for Hannah. She has joined forces with another CO.STARTERS graduate Lani Harvey to expand into a wellness centre.

Lani was also born and bred in Westport. “I left and had been away for 17 years before returning home”, she says. “I built my business Obsidian Beauty working from home for the last 6 years. It has been my dream to open a clinic and when my daughter went to school last year I decided it was time.”

“Collaborating with Hannah has been amazing, we are on the same page with everything”, Lani says. Their new business on the main street of Westport is called A Wild Peace Wellness Centre. It has extra rooms to rent out to other wellness practitioners.

“We will deliver you a personalized treatment in a restorative space, free from the pulls of life, realign your axis, from us to you”, Lani says.

“Our idea is to provide a sanctuary for people to escape the world”, adds Hannah. “A place where everybody and anybody is welcome. Everyone has a ‘piece’ to offer, coming together to find Peace within the Wild. 2018 is looking very bright!”

Book with Wild Peace Hauora Hub

Two locations for treatments in Tauranga Bay and Greymouth. Services include:

• Intuitive massage
• Deep tissue massage
• Yoga and Ayurveda

Book now!