Q & A With . . .

Tell us a bit about yourself, who is Edgar?

Edgar has been practicing Vipassana, an insight meditation technique for the last 15 years. He has also done meditation & mindfulness training in Thailand and India. He enjoys cultivating inner peace within himself and wants more and more people to tap into the healing and emancipating power of meditation and mindfulness.

What is Conscious Kenya?

Conscious Kenya is a holistic wellness community platform connecting coaches, therapists and other wellness practitioners and enthusiasts in Kenya. Our mission is to make access to services and resources for mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing easy, fun and affordable.

How did your Conscious Kenya journey begin?

My efforts towards growing conscious communities in Kenya started about 5 years ago when I used to host and participate in regular meditation meetups across Nairobi. Covid was a strong impetus to go online and so I started building a platform to connect enthusiasts of meditation and other conscious practices in Kenya.

As the co-founder of Conscious Kenya, what is it that you do?

My mission is to help others have easy access to information, support, venues and resources for healing, peace of mind and spiritual development. My work revolves around finding qualified, professional and conscious holistic wellness practitioners in Kenya and supporting them to increase their reach and impact through Conscious Kenya. I also explore different avenues to make wellness accessible to as many people as possible. I am also involved in the day-to-day management of the processes and teams involved in making all the magic happen.

What services do you provide with Conscious Kenya?

Our centralised hub for wellness enables easy access to practitioners, therapies, courses, events and venues you can trust. We help wellness practitioners and businesses to get listed on our directory and support them to make their services easily accessible through logistical and marketing support so that they can focus on what they are best at without the extra headaches.

Tell us more about your experience with social media?

My training, education and professional experience has been focused on digital marketing and website development and social media is weaved into these. This alongside having a dedicated social media team has helped us grow the Conscious Kenya platform to more than 1500 community members on the website and an organic social media and newsletter following of over 5000 in a little over a year with barely any paid promotions or ads.

If one thing you would change about social media, what would it be?

Most of the big social media platforms use dirty tricks used to keep people glued to their screens. They say that if you are not paying for the product, you are the product. Conscious Kenya wants to change how people engage with digital media. We are in the process of implementing features on the website and app to encourage more people to reconnect with themselves and others in the real world, away from the screens.

What qualifications do you require to do your work?

My work often requires knowledge of digital marketing, programming, business administration, entrepreneurship, design and accounting.

What are the challenges you face with the work you do?

Wellness practitioners often have very varied and specific needs and this has made Conscious Kenya an ever-evolving platform. We are constantly updating, upgrading, refining and sometimes replacing features to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the platform. I feel that all challenges always come with opportunities and I prefer to focus on the latter.

Do you have a morning routine to set you for the day?

I meditate for at least an hour, sometimes I will fit in a yoga session before getting onto my tasks.

What’s your go-to way of winding down after a long day?

Meditating

What is the one word that you want people to associate you with?

Most people describe me as calm and peaceful

What are the challenges you face in your profession?

Access to funding has been the biggest challenge. We have applied for several grants to increase holistic wellness access to lower income populations and people in need but none has been successful so far.

If you were not an influencer or running Conscious Kenya, what would you be doing?

Meditating in a forest

How can people contact you? 

Just drop an email to eddy@consciouskenya.com or whatsapp 0708717259