Wellness event in Cork with Gaza at its heart

This Sunday, October 5, Orka Gym at Crawford Business Park by The Lough will host the inaugural Cork Rebel Wellness Festival.

This is a day-long gathering of yoga, dance, meditation and live performance designed both to nourish the soul and to provide urgent aid to children in Gaza.

Envisioned as “a wellness festival with a mission, for a rebel with a cause,” the event promises to be a vibrant and purposeful addition to Cork’s community calendar.

The festival is the creation of a passionate local collective of yoga teachers, breathwork guides, artists, and activists who believe that true wellbeing cannot exist in isolation from the wider world.

All of the ticket proceeds will be donated to SANAD, a programme supported by the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), and the Little Wings Foundation, which provides medical care, rehabilitation and prosthetic support to injured children.

The humanitarian need in Gaza is stark. UNICEF and major international outlets report that the Gaza Strip now has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world, with thousands of children having suffered limb loss amid Israeli military aggression.

“We believe that our own healing is deeply interconnected with the healing of our global community,” says a spokesperson for the collective.

“This festival is about channeling the energy we cultivate through practices like yoga and meditation outwards.

“Our joy, our intention, our connection; these can become powerful forces for real, tangible change.”

That philosophy of “sacred rebellion” sits at the heart of the festival. The organisers frame the body as a “sacred vessel of resistance,” and they invite attendees to use embodied practices as modes of solidarity: to resource themselves through breathwork and movement, and then to direct that resourcing into practical support for others.

The day at ORKA is structured as an immersive journey intended for both seasoned practitioners and curious newcomers. Attendees can expect sessions of yoga, breathwork, kirtan, ecstatic dance, somatic movement and other workshops designed to unlock creativity, calm the nervous system, and foster communal connection.

Importantly, the festival is conceived as more than a one-off fundraiser. The collective plans to run the event monthly, with each edition supporting a different humanitarian or social cause.

“We aren’t interested in a single burst of charity,” the spokesperson explains.

“We want to build sustained local infrastructure for people to gather, resource themselves, and keep channeling that energy outward, month after month.”

Community and belonging are central pillars of the Rebel Wellness ethos. Beyond classes and performances, the festival will offer spaces for collaboration and learning : opportunities to connect with local activists and artists.

Organisers stress that the event is as much about meeting like-minded people and building relationships as it is about individual practice.

It is well known that joy and connection are profoundly healing - shared laughter, music, and movement calm the nervous system and restore resilience.

At Rebel Wellness, our joy is rebellion: choosing delight, play and presence is an act of solidarity.

Participants can expect plenty of fun throughout the day, with heart-opening, playful experiences woven into every session.

Expect to be expertly held by facilitators who teach internationally and locally, bringing rich experience and inclusive, trauma-aware practice to the space.

The Cork Rebel Wellness Festival arrives amid a broader cultural shift in which many practitioners are reimagining wellness as an arena for civic engagement.

Increasingly, communities are seeking ways to combine personal care with collective action: cultivating resilience, compassion and sustained commitment through embodied practice.

The festival positions itself within that movement as a practical experiment: move, breathe, sing and dance, and let what’s cultivated in the body translate into compassion and material aid for others.

For those who have ever sought more meaning from their wellness practice, or who feel called to act but are unsure where to begin, the festival offers a clear invitation: come as you are, be part of a community, and help make a difference.

Cork Rebel Wellness Festival takes place on Saturday, October 5, at Orka Gym, John Street, Cork city

It will raise funds for SANAD (a Palestine Children’s Relief Fund programme) to provide prosthetics for children in Gaza. 100% of proceeds will be donated.

For tickets and a full schedule of the day’s events, please visit the Eventbrite Page https://rebelwellnessfestival.eventbrite.comtarget="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> and follow us on Rebel Wellness Festival https://www.instagram.com/rebelwellnesseire on Instagram