We’re Proud to Partner with Freedive for Mental Health

We’re honoured to provide Freedive for Mental Health the use of a Volkswagen Multivan during their trial period.

The initiative is led by freediving instructor Ian Barker, who’s currently leading ‘Freedive for Mental Health‘s’ trial period. He takes those who’ve been struggling with mental health issues such as chronic anxiety, depression, anger management, and addiction recovery and uses ocean freediving and spearfishing to help heal. Over the past fifteen years, he’s seen first-hand the benefits the techniques have, through the combination of breath work, physical exercise, and a close interaction with nature.

They hold weekly pool training sessions that promote physical exercise, engage mindfulness, and allow participants to learn something new. Their courses are unique in the mental health field because they offer total immersion programmes for three weeks, with no additional medication required. Their goal is to help those suffering severe mental illness to be able to get back into the workplace and feel mentally stronger. Their programme teaches participants in five stages:

• How to swim and free-dive in a pool
• How to manage their breathing and extend their underwater breath-hold swim times and distances
• How to dive to depth (including equalisation and safety training)
• How to gather food and prepare a meal for themselves
• How to gather food and gift it to their whānau and friends

To help support their noble cause, we’ve provided them with a Volkswagen Multivan to drive participants to dive locations during the trial. If you’d like to donate to their cause, you can find their Give a Little page here.