Chelsea Roff – Executive Director
Chelsea Roff heads up the Give Back Yoga Foundation UK and is also the Founder and Director of Eat Breathe Thrive. A yoga therapist, educator, and research collaborator, she has spent the better part of a decade working to make integrative health programmes available to people with mental health challenges.
In 2013, Chelsea founded Eat Breathe Thrive, a Give Back Yoga programme which aims to prevent and help people recover from eating disorders. Since its inception, she has brought the programme to scale in thirty-eight U.S states and nine countries. To this day, the organization thrives as a Legacy Programme under The Give Back Yoga umbrella.
Prior to her work in the nonprofit sector, Chelsea worked as a researcher in a psychoneuroimmunology laboratory. Her early research explored how yoga impacts the immune system of individuals with HIV/AIDs and cancer. She is currently working in collaboration with researchers at the University at Buffalo on a research initiative on the Eat Breathe Thrive programme, which includes four studies (two randomized controlled trials) on a yoga programme for eating disorders.
In 2019, Chelsea received a visa to move to the United Kingdom and set The Give Back Yoga Foundation up as a registered charity. She is currently spearheading an initiative to bring yoga programmes for populations facing addiction, cancer, eating disorders, and PTSD to scale in the National Healthcare System.
Samantha Christodoulou – Creative Director
Samantha Christodoulou is the Creative Director of the Give Back Yoga Foundation UK and US, Director of Operations and programme Facilitator for Eat Breathe Thrive, and a Certified Yoga Teacher (RYT-500). She is also proud to be a Fellow of the Mental Health Collective.
Informed by her personal experience of yoga during recovery from depression, anxiety, and anorexia nervosa, Sam has an embodied understanding of the therapeutic benefits of the practice.
It was her subsequent passion for a holistic approach to mental health and wellbeing which drew her to Eat Breathe Thrive — first, serving as a volunteer during the the widely-successful Yoga for Eating Disorders crowdfunding campaign, and later, growing into a leadership role with the organisation. After contributing time on-and-off to Give Back Yoga over the years, Sam officially joined the Give Back Yoga team in late 2018.
Guided by her personal and professional experiences, Sam is dedicated to empowering others with tools and practices to feel at home in their own bodies.
Trustees
Our trustees guide the vision and operations of the charity, empowering us to serve in a sustainable and effective way.
Rob Schware – Trustee and Executive Director of the Give Back Yoga Foundation US
Rob Schware, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Give Back Yoga Foundation US and is President Ex-Officio & Advisor for the Yoga Service Council.
In late 2006, Rob brought his two decades of management experience with the World Bank to a second career: helping to grow the yoga service movement. He wanted to combine his development and project management expertise in over 30 countries including India, Indonesia, Turkey, Rwanda and Palestine with his passion for yoga, by forming an organization whose mission it is to bring yoga to underserved populations.
In 2013, his work of co-founding and furthering the Give Back Yoga Foundation earned him the International Association of Yoga Therapists’ Karma Yoga Award for “extraordinary selfless service in reducing suffering and elevating consciousness through yoga.” And in 2016, he received Yoga Journal’s Good Karma award.
He has been married to Alice Trembour for 32 years, which, like yoga, is in and of itself a regular commitment to a practice. They have three children.
Nicole Schnackenberg – Trustee
Dr Nicole Schnackenberg is a child, community and educational psychologist and certified as both a Hatha and Kundalini yoga teacher. She has undertaken extensive training in yoga therapy also.
Nicole currently divides her time between working as an educational psychologist in Southend, Essex and her position as a trustee of the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Foundation. She has authored books on transpersonal modes of healing from food and body image struggles: False Bodies, True Selves: Moving Beyond Appearance-Focused Identity Struggles and Returning to the True Self and Bodies Arising: Fall in Love with your Body and Remember your Divine Essence. She has also co-authored The Parent's Guide to Body Dysmorphic Disorder and co-edited, Reflections on Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Stories of Courage, Determination and Hope.
Harriet McAtee – Trustee
Harriet McAtee is a yoga educator & teacher with extensive experience in community and social justice-focussed yoga. Harriet was the CEO of Yoga Quota, a charity that worked to deliver yoga to disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. She is now the owner and Lead Trainer of Nourish Yoga Training, where her vision is to foster a community of compassionate, informed and inclusive yoga teachers.
Harriet is an E-RYT 500, and has carried out further trainings in accessible, trauma-informed yoga. Harriet is originally from Australia, and has lived in Oxford, UK since 2015.
Coming soon!
Programme Directors
Our programme directors lead yoga service programmes and teacher trainings that support vulnerable and underserved populations.
James Fox – Founder of Prison Yoga Project
James Fox is the founder and director of the Prison Yoga Project, an organisation dedicated to establishing yoga and mindfulness meditation programmes in prisons and rehabilitation centres worldwide. Since 2002, he has taught yoga and meditation to male prisoners at California’s San Quentin Prison, as well as other state prisons. His book Yoga: A Path for Healing and Recovery, published in January 2010 through the support of the Give Back Yoga Foundation, has been requested and sent free of charge to over 8,000 prisoners. James provides trauma-sensitive, mindfulness-based teacher trainings in the U.S. and internationally for yoga instructors who are interested in leading classes in prisons and rehabilitation facilities. He has broad and extensive training in various yoga and meditation disciplines, and is specially trained in applying yoga practices for addiction recovery and trauma-related issues.
Upon receiving his teaching credentials in 2000, James began his mission of sharing the psychologically therapeutic benefits of yoga and meditation with at-risk populations, including the incarcerated. In addition to his work with adult prisoners, he has experience teaching yoga and mindfulness practices to at-risk youth in juvenile detention; at a residential treatment facility for boys; and for an inner city gang-related community programme. In 2003, James established the yoga curriculum for the Peacebuilders Initiative, an annual weeklong summer intensive for Chicago teenagers that focuses on youth learning community leadership, conflict transformation and peacemaking skills.
James is also on the staff of the Insight Prison Project, a California based non-profit that is a leading restorative justice agency involved in prisoner rehabilitation. He has served Insight Prison Project for several years as a facilitator of victim/offender education, violence prevention and emotional literacy classes for prisoners. In 2008 and 2009, James was awarded U.S. State Department Grants to advise and train people in charge of governmental and non-governmental prisoner rehabilitation programmes in Guatemala and El Salvador.
Nikki Myers – Founder of Yoga of 12-Step Recovery
Nikki Myers developed Yoga of 12-Step Recovery (Y12SR) in 2004. An accomplished speaker, teacher, and practitioner, Nikki Myers is an MBA, C-IAYT Yoga Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Addictions Recovery Specialist, and Health Coach. Born from her personal struggle with addiction and work with countless students, Nikki is the founder of Y12SR, Yoga of 12-Step Recovery.
Based on its theme ‘the issues live in the tissues’, Y12SR is a relapse prevention programme that weaves the art & science of yoga with the practical tools of 12-step programmes. Y12SR meetings are available internationally and the curriculum has rapidly become a feature of addiction recovery treatment centres. Nikki’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Black Enterprise, The Huffington Post, Origin Magazine, CBSnews.com and countless podcasts. She is honoured to be a co-founder of the annual Yoga, Meditation and Recovery Conferences at Esalen Institute and Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.
Nikki has been featured as a keynote speaker at the International Association of Yoga Therapist (IAYT) conference and the International Conference on Integrative Medicine held at Harvard Medical School. She was named a Yoga Journal Game Changer and is an honored recipient of the esteemed NUVO Cultural Visionary Award.
Suzanne Manafort – Founder of Mindful Yoga Therapy
Suzanne Manafort is the Founder and Director of Mindful Yoga Therapy, a programme supported through the Give Back Yoga Foundation to help veterans find a calm and steady body and mind. Mindful Yoga Therapy protocol has been clinically studied, and is in use at 47 different VA facilities across the country. Certified yoga teachers can learn how to bring the Mindful Yoga Therapy programme into their own communities through a 15-hour workshop, or into clinical settings through a 100-hour certification course.
Suzanne has studied extensively with Beryl Bender Birch at The Hard and The Soft Yoga Institute, and with Patty Townsend at Yoga Center Amherst’s Embodyoga® Teacher Training programmes. She serves on the faculty at both schools, and as Director of her own studio, Newington Yoga Center. Suzanne has also completed the Living Tantra and Sage programmes taught by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait at the Himalayan Institute. In 2009, she was designated a Wells Fargo Second Half Champion for her work with vets. She is co-author of the Mindful Yoga Therapy for Veterans multi-media practice guide, which has been distributed free of charge to over 13,500 veterans through the Give Back Yoga Foundation. She is also the producer of three CDs: Yoga Nidra, Breathe In Breathe Out, and Resilience.
Chelsea Roff – Founder of Eat Breathe Thrive
Chelsea Roff is the Founder and Director of Eat Breathe Thrive. An author, researcher, and educator, she has spent nearly a decade pioneering integrative health programmes for people with mental health challenges.
In 2011, Roff offered the first Yoga for Eating Disorders programme to clients at a treatment center where she had once been treated for anorexia. This later became the heart of Eat Breathe Thrive: a seven-week intervention that combines yoga, meditation, and psychoeducation to help people recover from eating disorders. Two years later, she raised $50,000 in fifty days to kickstart Eat Breathe Thrive. Since its inception, she has brought the programme to scale in thirty-two U.S states and seven countries.
Prior to her work in the charitable sector, Chelsea worked as a researcher and grant writer in a psychoneuroimmunology laboratory. Her early research focused on how yoga affects the immune systems of people with HIV/AIDs and cancer. She is currently overseeing a research initiative on the Eat Breathe Thrive programme, which will be the largest ever study on a yoga programme for eating disorders.
This year, Chelsea took on an additional role as UK Operations Director for The Give Back Yoga Foundation. She is currently spearheading the initiative to bring The Give Back Yoga Foundation programmes to scale in the UK and throughout Europe.
Tari Prinster – Founder of yoga4cancer
Tari Prinster is a cancer survivor, master yoga teacher, author and founder of yoga4cancer (y4c), a yoga methodology for cancer survivors.
After a cancer diagnosis in 2000, yoga became Tari’s power tool to manage cancer treatment side effects. Two decades ago, minimal research existed to explain yoga benefits. Tari got curious about how yoga worked and why doctors did not recommend yoga as part of treatment recovery. She created a methodology tailored to survivors’ needs, educating them how yoga provides immunity, lowering recurrence risk.
Tari’s organisation, yoga4cancer trains yoga teachers and health care professionals around the world in this special methodology. Her book, Yoga for Cancer, available in English, Spanish and Japanese, illustrates how to manage side effects and boost immunity.
Featured in the film YogaWoman and awarded Yoga Journal’s First Seva Leadership Award, Tari’s mantra is “Cancer may take your breath away. Yoga gives it back.”
Advisory Board Members
By helping us to give back and spread the word about our mission, these internationally recognised teachers are igniting the flame of yoga service.
