Naaya is a wellness company making yoga, meditation, and therapy more accessible to BIPOC youth.

Naaya is a wellness company making yoga, meditation, and therapy more accessible to BIPOC youth. YPulse’s State of Mind trend research found that more than half of 13-39-year-old BIPOC young consumers are interested in yoga and individual therapy, and one newly launched wellness company is attempting to help that demographic. Before Sinikiwe Dhliwayo founded Naaya a few years ago, she worked in the health magazine industry where she worked to emphasize that wellness goes beyond drinking green juice or eating salads. When she finally left the media industry to pursue the venture full-time, she was driven by many factors, including “those at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.” Two of the main components of Naaya include The Check-In and Re-Treat, a yoga and meditation retreat created in partnership with Girlvana Yoga, which has another iteration in early 2022. Before the pandemic, the company hosted in-person yoga and meditation classes—but when COVID hit, she began finding ways to increase accessibility for therapy in BIPOC communities. Dhliwayo was inspired to start the company because she didn’t have access to mental health resources as a young person herself, so she has been working to connect young BIPOC with “culturally competent therapists” as well as tailor the experiences to their wants and needs. (PopSugar)