Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

To many SHE Casa is a haven where one can es­cape and re­turn in­vig­o­rat­ed and ready to take on the world! Be it en­gag­ing your core in grav­i­ty defin­ing pole danc­ing class­es, learn­ing a new dance move and ac­ti­vat­ing mus­cles you didn’t re­alise you had, or de­stress­ing with like-mind­ed women in a space that feels like a sanc­tu­ary!

SHE Casa is that space that en­cour­ages women to be their best S.H.E. : Sexy, Healthy, and En­er­getic and as they cel­e­brate their 10th an­niver­sary, the many clients over the years can at­test to this mis­sion be­ing ac­com­plished.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and founder of SHE Casa, Joel­la Corneille, en­vi­sioned this mul­ti­pur­pose lifestyle cen­tre for women, merg­ing her back­ground in hos­pi­tal­i­ty, ad­min­is­tra­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ship with her pas­sion for dance and fit­ness and launched SHE Casa with the goal of be­ing a ‘women-on­ly’ feel good cen­tre fo­cus­ing on healthy lifestyles and con­fi­dence build­ing while hav­ing fun.

The mis­sion was firm­ly en­shrined: “Women sup­port­ing each oth­er, to achieve holis­tic per­son­al growth.”

Danc­ing from age three

Corneille nev­er imag­ined that dance and fit­ness would be­come such a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in her ca­reer. She start­ed danc­ing at the age of three and par­tic­i­pat­ed in var­i­ous gen­res of dance class­es for more than three decades. Dur­ing that jour­ney, she com­pet­ed and medalled in var­i­ous aer­o­bic com­pe­ti­tions which even­tu­al­ly led to train­ing oth­ers for those com­pe­ti­tions.

Corneille said: “At this time, this was just an ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ty/hob­by while I was a teller at a fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion, try­ing to fig­ure out a ca­reer path. Sub­se­quent­ly, I stud­ied Ho­tel Man­age­ment at the Cen­tre for Ho­tel and Tourism Man­age­ment in the Ba­hamas and se­cured a man­age­r­i­al po­si­tion at an in­ter­na­tion­al ho­tel chain. I firm­ly be­lieved that I was get­ting ready for a long and il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer in hos­pi­tal­i­ty. But the uni­verse had oth­er plans!”

Cre­ativ­i­ty catal­ysed the piv­ot

Her warm per­son­al­i­ty and com­pas­sion­ate na­ture fos­tered con­ver­sa­tions with women in vary­ing spheres.

“They shared their chal­lenges, suc­cess­ful women with hid­den in­se­cu­ri­ties, some not hav­ing a space to com­fort­ably be them­selves and detox. I al­ways felt like there was more to be done, more I can do to help women, and that we did with SHE Casa. My pas­sion and cre­ativ­i­ty piv­ot­ed me to this next en­tre­pre­neur­ial stage, where SHE Casa was birthed.

“Man­ag­ing my own busi­ness came with many ad­ver­si­ties. The biggest chal­lenge has been try­ing to make a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact, while try­ing to sur­vive fi­nan­cial­ly as a busi­ness. I learnt very ear­ly, the strength in fo­cus­ing on the goal, di­ver­si­fy­ing the busi­ness and ask­ing for help where need­ed.”

SHE Casa So­cial Club

SHE Casa di­ver­si­fied their ac­tiv­i­ties to fill the gaps and needs ex­pressed by the clients in those con­ver­sa­tions with founder Joelle Corneille.

“We de­vel­oped events for women to so­cial­ize, net­work and learn from each oth­er - Sip & Colour, hikes, karaoke and our sig­na­ture event SHE Talks,” she shared.

“How­ev­er, the pan­dem­ic, ham­pered these in per­son ac­tiv­i­ties and var­i­ous shifts were nec­es­sary to stay afloat.”

“How did SHE Casa sur­vive the pan­dem­ic?” WE asked.

“Im­me­di­ate­ly the class­es were shift­ed to on­line us­ing what­ev­er plat­forms and re­sources were avail­able. Mem­bers were in the mid­dle of their month­ly pack­ages so the first thought was ho­n­our­ing that com­mit­ment in any pos­si­ble way,” Corneille ex­plained.

“We were even­tu­al­ly able to reach women who were no longer barred by dis­tance. These on­line class­es be­came a source of pur­pose and an out­let for both in­struc­tors and par­tic­i­pants dur­ing this time of glob­al un­cer­tain­ty. We were even able to ex­pand the ser­vices of the club dur­ing this pe­ri­od as we host­ed free on­line self-de­fence ses­sions with a qual­i­fied mar­tial arts in­struc­tor.”

At­ten­tion to self-care

In the past ten years, SHE Casa has of­fered var­i­ous “Me Time” ac­tiv­i­ties plac­ing that em­pha­sis on self-care. This plays a key role in one’s self-im­age and self-con­fi­dence, es­pe­cial­ly in this fast-paced world. Self-care can help one iso­late time to dis­con­nect from over­whelm­ing is­sues and en­cour­age per­son to equi­li­brate and find that healthy bal­ance.

“Self-care is im­por­tant for all, es­pe­cial­ly women who de­pri­ori­tise their well­be­ing,” Corneille said. “The ac­tiv­i­ties at SHE Casa are all planned with at­ten­tion to Self-care for women.”

SHE­flex Dance Fit­ness

SHE­flex is the sig­na­ture dance-fit­ness ac­tiv­i­ty de­signed and per­fect­ed by Joelle Corneille. Some may in­cor­po­rate the pole danc­ing ex­er­cis­es.

Corneille ex­plained: “The ses­sion is meant to give women the op­por­tu­ni­ty to feel lib­er­at­ed in a safe and sup­port­ive space. Some of the move­ments are quite provoca­tive but with­in the en­cour­ag­ing space, when the par­tic­i­pants com­plete the dance rou­tine, their lev­el of con­fi­dence soars!”

Corneille shares there are many ben­e­fits to the SHE­flex Fit­ness rou­tines:

• Puts you in a bet­ter mood. It is very un­like­ly that you will leave your SHE­flex ses­sion in a bad mood.

• It is an awe­some so­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

• The class gets your heart pump­ing a lit­tle faster and def­i­nite­ly im­proves your car­dio­vas­cu­lar health. The Caribbean mu­sic is very in­fec­tious and makes it im­pos­si­ble to re­main still.

• Even though you are hav­ing so much fun, it is still a work­out, there­fore if ac­com­pa­nied with a prop­er di­et it will work for weight loss.

• Learn­ing the sim­ple rou­tines will re­sult in bet­ter co­or­di­na­tion and im­proved men­tal health.

• Avail­able to all adult women re­gard­less of age, size or pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence.

One reg­u­lar client said: “Danc­ing at SHE Casa makes me feel em­pow­ered, beau­ti­ful AND healthy. It’s the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for me to un­wind and im­prove my fit­ness lev­el, all while ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the unique sis­ter­hood.”

Her ad­vice to women: “Prac­tise self-care!

“It isn’t al­ways easy, but there’s noth­ing you can’t do! Be the best you pos­si­ble. Take care of your men­tal health along with tak­ing care of your phys­i­cal health! We’ve spent the past three years deal­ing with the pan­dem­ic, and al­most all of us have ex­pe­ri­enced a roller­coast­er ride in our lives.

“And re­mem­ber to dance!”

As one of the many SHE Casa clients shared: “I for­get all my stress­es for that brief pe­ri­od, while I am danc­ing, and I es­cape in­to my own world of hap­pi­ness!”