To read more about Bristol Stepping Sistas, check out our exclusive and powerful interview with founder Sophia Brown for our brand new weekly Bristol Voices newsletter, which you can sign up to for free here. You can find out more about our newsletter here
The wellness industry draws on practices worldwide and in theory, aims to cater to all who wish to enhance their mind, body and spirit.
However, when racism and fatphobia within the wellness industry is addressed, many argue it’s more than diversity, but rather adequately increasing representation to be able to address those issues.
For example, in the UK, Black women are neglected in being equally treated to physical pain like their white counterparts , leading to higher rates of diabetes and hypertension, and as well as Black patients receiving less mental health care due to racial disparities.
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Basic methods such as walking can create a substantial impact- if they may be deemed as a viable option in the first place.
Hence in April 2021, Sophia Brown, a Bristol-based event planner, formed a walking group that enables access for Bristolian women of colour to explore the outdoors in a safe and inclusive manner, that does not centre on reaching an ideal weight goal.
For Sophia, she felt the group was essential in creating a community bonded by shared experiences, while ultimately rejecting the notion that wellness should solely target slim, white, able bodied women.
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She said: “Prior to Stepping Sistas, I was with a walking group called Black Girls Hike. I decided to go independent just for Bristol because I wanted to create a walking group that’s more diverse for women of colour, as well as Black women.
“We started very small because we began during the lockdown, so we had to be precautious about meeting in groups. Now it’s grown and it became successful, so I’m glad that I made Stepping Sistas during the pandemic.
“Walking at that time was the only activity everybody was doing and we were encouraging more women to walk with us, because that’s all we had.
“People were looking for ways to manage their mental health and I found that there were women who were joining because they felt isolated- they needed to be around other people.”
Since last year, Bristol Stepping Sistas has grown exponentially and its founder hopes that it continues to grow to higher levels.
As a nature and wellness enthusiast, Sophia believes that walking outdoors and embarking on several organised trails from Eastville Park to further into The Cotswolds, has helped her and other members find common grounds to speak out wholeheartedly about their experiences, where they wouldn’t feel comfortable being their authentic selves elsewhere.
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She said: “There’s been a lot of feedback from women who tell me after they’ve gone home after a walk, that they’ve slept well.
“There was a woman I know who suffered from insomnia and who started to sleep well after our walks. There’s a lot of calmness about this and less stress that becomes reduced.
“It’s about looking after our mental health and physical health, since our walkers can normally have internal physical problems and there’s a sense of belonging feeling like they can open up and talk about our culture, without having to answer awkward questions that can be discriminatory and share.
“You don’t have to make friends but a lot of women have made friends with people they haven’t met before and it’s like a security blanket for them, where they can come to the group to feel seen.”
Sophia states that the benefits of walking have brought not only positive feedback, but also positive results that can aid in the expansion of Stepping Sistas.
Furthermore, Sophia believes that the effect of Stepping Sistas locally can shake up the fitness, health and wellness sector to make room for further inclusivity, in order to break taboos that can instead uplift messages of care, community and courage.
“Nature is our natural habitat and this is why I believe that women of colour, Black women specifically, can go into nature and it’s free.
“It’s for all women to have a healthy balance in life and to feel grounded by feeling comfortable culture-wise, where we’re not being gaslit or dismissed if it was from others from a privileged position.
“We’ve had testimonies from women of colour who previously were a part of a White-led group and it was a different atmosphere where they felt out of place, and even intimidated at worst.
“They would be bombarded with questions about their ethnicity or culture, which they found quite draining. What I can say about that is that they ask because they don’t know- I’ve been in a White-led walking groups where I just want to go for walks and not think about colour.
“I’m not thinking about being the only Black woman in my group but I couldn’t help but see it because I’d be constantly asked as if I’m a teacher for these people. It can have an effect on you, these microaggressions, and I couldn’t defend myself being the only one where nobody else understood me.”
As Stepping Sistas currently consists of over 700 walkers, Sophia will maintain taking on leader duties to run the walking group to its greatest potential, as she hopes to fill in her role full-time in the future.
With other projects in the works, Sophie hopes she can turn working as a walking leader for Stepping Sistas as a full-time gig, as her passion not only lies in exploring the unknown, but also bridging the gap between local communities to bring forth harmony and togetherness.
She said: “I’ve got no intention of setting up a membership for people to pay because the dynamics of walking shouldn’t be a means to charge people with. It’s just not my character.
“So far, we’ve trained 24 women for our first-aid course which was a few weeks ago, which was really good for women who hope to branch out and take other women walking or other groups.
“I personally would like to make this a full-time career taking women outside and helping to train other women and getting them confident to go to unknown places. I love my job and I hope to keep growing my group and get more people on board, from admin to more walk leaders to assist me.
“Bristol is a big enough city and I’ve been doing these walks twice a month, but because we don’t have enough staff members, we’ve had to do them four times per month. But I’d love to do this all the time and I’d give up my job if I had to.
“My aim is to encourage people to come out walking and improve their wellbeing, that’s the main thing. I don’t mind leading women into the countryside because there’s the emotional side of it, as well.
“I don’t want to sound patronising but I want to let these women shine and to be able to see that makes what I do even more fulfilling.”
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