Social activist Tiffany Paynter believes the island’s high cost of living forces many people to make fear-based career choices.

For a long time, she was one of them. “I always lived a practical life, out of necessity,” she said. “I had bills and rent to pay.”

Recently, she decided she was tired of living that way. Four months ago, she quit her job as executive director of the charity OutBermuda to focus on her passion for yoga.

“I wanted to shift to what is possible, not just for me, but for our entire community,” Ms Paynter said. “Yoga is medicine. It cures many different physical and mental ailments.”

On Saturday, she and Caitlin Conyers opened Treehouse Bermuda, a wellness and yoga hub at 12 Trott Road in Hamilton. And the community came out to support the initiative.

Treehouse will offer yoga and fitness classes, as well as space for parties and meetings. Rooms are also being sublet to other wellness businesses.

“We even have a meditation cave,” Ms Paynter said.

She was in the Ignite business accelerator programme planning out a small yoga business when she discovered an empty two-storey building at 12 Trott Road.

“When I saw the loft space upstairs I realised I had been dreaming too small,” she said. “I was not supposed to have one room to offer yoga classes, I was supposed to have 14.”

She teamed up with her friend Ms Conyers to incorporate Treehouse as a company in May.

Ms Conyers is the senior investigation officer at the Information Commission Office, She is an elite cyclist and is working towards becoming a yoga instructor.

When the pair took over the building, it needed a lot of work after sitting vacant for four years. Everything was mouldy and in disrepair.

“One of the most important things I learnt from Ignite is to ask for help,” Ms Paynter said. “That can be hard but you have to surround yourself with people who are good at what they do in different fields. You have to build a community.”

Community has become a guiding principal at Treehouse. The building has been cleaned out, repaired, painted, polished and redecorated by more than 100 volunteers and 15 trades people.

“Treehouse is not just a business,” Ms Paynter said. “We are a mission-driven social enterprise aimed at addressing critical health disparities within the Black and Black, indigenous and People of Colour communities through yoga, movement and holistic wellness offering.”

For a long time, Ms Paynter wanted nothing to do with yoga. She could not imagine herself in a yoga class because most of the people she saw in yoga advertisements were thin, White women.

Her mind changed 15 years ago, when she saw a photo of Jessamyn Stanley, an American Instagrammer who gained recognition for posts about doing yoga as a plus-size woman of colour.

“Representation is so important,” Ms Paynter said. “Only nine per cent of the Black population are showing up to yoga classes. That is a real problem, particularly because health issues in just about every category impact us more disproportionately.”

Nine out of ten yoga teachers at Treehouse will be people of colour. Ms Paynter also wants to attract more men to yoga classes there.