Health, Wellbeing, and Safety

You and your health and wellbeing are important to us. To support your retreat experience, REN XUE Africa works to create a safe, supportive, and healthy environment for our time together.

This retreat involves residential participation with up to 90 people, including moving Qigong practice, meditation, periods of silence, self-reflection, internal exploration. While many people find these experiences deeply beneficial, participants can sometimes experience strong physical, emotional and/or psychological reactions during these practices, and as such, participation may not be suitable during periods of significant physical and/or psychological distress.

Our team is trained to facilitate the retreat program but is not a medical or mental health service and is not equipped to manage significant physical or mental health conditions or crises.

HEALTH

We ask that you read the recommendations in our Guidelines for Health and Safety and work with these to help us shape a retreat environment which benefits everyone.

With regard to any illness, please let us know of any new health conditions which could impact your own or others’ experience on retreat, especially if you have become unwell in the week before the event.

This especially applies to respiratory and digestive illnesses. Please take a general nasal swab (available from most pharmacies) for respiratory illnesses if you are at all unwell or have been in recent contact with people who are unwell with anything infectious, before arriving at the venue. If you test positive, please let us know so that we can help support you in your recovery and also put things in place to lessen the chances of others getting sick too.

At any time during the retreat if you need some support or become unwell, please let the Wellbeing and Guidance team know so they can help you.

GENERAL WELLBEING

Being in a relaxed, calm, and natural state is a good way to prepare for a Ren Xue retreat. This helps create a strong foundation of internal harmony to integrate new insights and grow.

If your mental state is unstable or highly changeable and it is often hard to be in a calm state, it is safer for you not to attend a Ren Xue retreat at this time. Please read our Taking Care to Prepare information before registering to decide whether now is a good time for you to join a retreat or not. If not, there will be other opportunities in the future and you will benefit even more if you attend at a time that is right for you.

As part of the registration process we ask you to complete a questionnaire to help us determine whether:

• the retreat is appropriate for you at this time;
• there are any reasonable adjustments we can make to support your participation; and
• we have the resources necessary to provide a safe environment for everyone attending.

We only collect health and wellbeing information that is reasonably necessary to determine whether we can safely support your participation and to make the appropriate arrangements if you attend.

If your responses indicate that additional support may be required, a member of our team will contact you to discuss your circumstances confidentially before your registration is processed. In some situations, we may request further information before confirming your registration.

We assess each application individually based on the participant’s current circumstances, the nature of the retreat and the support we are able to provide. Occasionally we may determine that we are unable to safely support participation at this particular retreat. If this occurs, we will explain the reasons and, where possible, discuss alternative options.

If during the retreat it becomes apparent that we cannot safely support your participation, we may need to arrange for you to leave the retreat so you can access the necessary medical or psychological support. Any such decision will be made with your wellbeing and the safety of all participants in mind.