Danni Gordon and The Chachi Power Project

Case study

Danni Gordon is a passionate and creative Body Positive Advocate based in Edinburgh who is here to remind every body that they are beautiful. She created the Chachi Power Project in January 2017 on a mission to improve everyone’s body confidence through her writing, interactive workshops, talks, events and retreats.

Her work, including her new podcast: Chachi Chats, concentrates on creating a supportive community to help people feel comfortable to share stories, learn more about and discuss aspects of body image. Tackling issues which can affect individuals as well as society. With her background in the creative industries she is never far from incorporating art and design into her fun and friendly workshops.

She is a major supporter of the Body Positive Movement which encourages everyone to fully respect and accept all body types regardless of age, race, gender, ability, size, shape or health status.

Read about Danni and the Chachi Power Project below.

Anna Deacon Photography

I set up the Chachi Power Project in 2017 after having a flip/reversal of my attitude towards my own body after doing some much needed mindset changing work in 2016. Through doing a few courses and reading some books about mindset, I went from what was a daily, low level, anxiety-fuelled, body dissatisfaction and preoccupation to completely relishing that I had a body that I get to look after and which works as well as it does.

I decided to start The Chachi Power Project because I thought if my general bad body image can be flipped around then perhaps I can help my friends and colleagues change their attitude towards their bodies. Only after starting the project in Jan 2017 did I realise that this general body hate I felt, is felt by the majority of the nation, especially women and girls and it wasn’t until I fell into the ‘Body Positive Movement’ that I realised exactly why we all feel the way we do about our bodies.

We have been force fed a message since we were little of what a ‘good body’ is and what a ‘bad body’ is. You just have to start getting a tiny bit critical about the narrow diversity of the bodies we see on billboards, in films, on TV and in adverts. It’s really not that difficult to notice how disabled bodies aren’t catered for in shops and restaurants and public transport, how black bodies are treated by police and can be hypersexualised or desexualised, how fat bodies are treated differently from thin bodies by medical practitioners and by clothing manufacturers, how non-binary and trans bodies are excluded from safe places, how old bodies are neglected and dismissed and how sick bodies just aren’t visible anywhere.

We all get the drip, drip, drip of ‘YOUR BODY IS WRONG’ on a daily basis but because that message is everywhere we don’t notice it anymore and instead we internalise that narrative and get to work with hating ourselves. It gets worse as we grow older and our bodies change and we get told by society ‘these are more flaws you should dislike’. We compare ourselves daily in this hyper-online world and get sold more treatments, diets, routines and products which will help us ‘improve’. #capitalism

Three and a half years on and now the main aim of The Chachi Power Project has altered quite massively from: ‘everyone should love themselves’ (imagine the hearts and kissy faces when you read that) to a rather serious…:

  • How can we raise awareness about where body inequalities are in our society and make this world safer and more inclusive of all bodies?
  • How can we change people’s language to prevent another generation of young people growing up with even worse body image than we had?
  • How can we stop the perpetual cycle of body hatred towards ourselves and all bodies and release ourselves from that dangerous, consuming preoccupation so we can live happy, fulfilling, unencumbered, well lives?

So really what I’m trying to do with The Chachi Power Project is shine a light on the many aspects of that toxic world so we can all start being nicer to ourselves and start fighting for the rights of each other.

blog and raise awareness about the inequalities experienced by marginalised bodies (people of colour, age, size, shape, disability, gender, health status). I talk on social media about the ways these consistent and sly messages have impacted me and others and give tips on how to undo the damage. I use the Chachi Chats Podcast to explore different parts of the Body Positive Movement and speak to people about their experience with their own body.

I have been asked to be part of two of YWCA Scotland’s programmes (Young Women Lead and The Status of Young Women in Scotland) to discuss the impact of body image in our lives and I have contributed to The Scottish Government’s Body Image Advisory Group about body image and the online experience.

As well as being a speaker or panellist at events and conferences and on podcasts, I also run my own events where we explore topics such as; Intuitive Eating, Menopause, children’s body image, The Body Positive Movement itself, body equality, self-care, sexual confidence, post-partum bodies, gender, the female experience and I try to find ways we can celebrate our bodies such as The International Women’s Day Swim which I’ve organised with friends for the past 2 years.

You can follow me online via the links below, engage me to speak at your event or interview me for your podcast. Perhaps you have an idea for a project you’d be keen to collaborate on? You just have to get in touch: danni@chachipowerproject.co.uk

If you’d like to be a guest on The Chachi Chats Podcast then have a listen to my previous episodes (wherever you get your podcasts) and give me a shout if you are happy to share about your relationship to your body.

Find out more:

Website: https://www.chachipowerproject.co.uk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chachipowerproject/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chachipowerproject

Twitter: https://twitter.com/chachi_power

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannigordon/

Chachi Chats Podcast: https://www.chachipowerproject.co.uk/podcast

Photo credits:

Image 1 & 5: Anna Deacon Photography

Image 2: Jannica Honey Photography

Image 3: Lisa Gordon Scott Photography

Image 4: Chachi Chats Podcast

Anna Deacon Photography