Summer School bursary holders announced

Summer School bursary holders announced

This year we offered 5 places at the OMC Summer School 2017 through a competitive application, review and selection process, to people who we felt would use the Summer School experience to widen access and participation in MBCT.

The 2017 bursary holders are teachers and mindfulness practitioners from Paraguay, Ireland, England and Hong Kong, who teach mindfulness to adults and children living with disabilities, Parkinson’s disease, cancer, anxiety and depression:

José Godoy

A self-employed clinical psychologist and Mindfulness practitioner in Paraguay, who works with parents of children living with disabilities, José feels that attending the Summer School will help him in a number of ways. His main motivation to participate is to get more formal training in the field of MBCT in order to improve his facilitation skills. He explains, “there is a real need to spread Mindfulness locally and people have been asking me to train them to become facilitators. As a result, I must develop appropriate mentoring skills and I am confident that taking part in the Summer School will give me more tools for this new journey”. Read full story

Azizë Stirling

Azizë, an independent Mindfulness teacher in Oxford, UK, is researching the case for devising a mindfulness course aimed at people with Parkinson’s Disease. She says the theme of this year’s Summer School, ‘Investigating mind without losing heart: mindfulness, fragility and compassion’, is particularly poignant for her, having worked with people living with Parkinson’s. She says, “I’m hoping that the Summer School will be an opportunity to explore many other matters that touch on the work I’m doing now – as a researcher, course developer and teacher”. Read full story

Paula Martin

Paula is a GP and mindfulness practitioner in the west of Ireland. As a Registrar in the Department of Psychiatry in Co Sligo, she has seen first-hand the need for mindfulness-based interventions, however she says, “Mindfulness Based Clinical interventions are in their infancy in the West of Ireland. There is currently a lack of formally trained heath care professionals to offer such a program within clinical settings”. She hopes the Summer School will provide “inspiration, guidance and support on how I may expand current mindfulness interventions to those who are vulnerable to depression”.  Read full story

Cecilia Shefflin

Cecilia, a mindfulness teacher and facilitator in the south of Ireland, has been teaching classes to the general population and cancer patients in the South of Ireland for the last 3 years. She says “I closely follow the speakers at OMC events and have always wanted the opportunity to attend the Summer School”. She hopes that attending this year “will strengthen my ability to provide the MBCT programme to those affected by cancer”. Read full story

Susan Hargreaves

As a mindfulness counsellor in Hong Kong, Susan currently incorporates MBCT into weekly Social Skills classes with children aged 6-9 and 9-11 who have ASD, ADHD and anxiety, by placing the intentions and practice of MBCT at the foundation of the Social Thinking curriculum. She says, “Attending Summer School at the OMC should prepare me more fully to teach underprivileged teenagers, refugees, and students at International schools who live in a constant state of anxiety and stress”. Read full story

There are still places available on the Summer School, which takes place from 28 August – 1 September at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford.