A Bit About Us

​It started with children and asthma

The ideas that led to BreathChamps began in 2017, working with children and families in Eccles affected by asthma.In 2020, BreathChamps became a Community Interest Company (CIC), formally establishing our commitment to creating social benefit through our work.

We believed that asthma education didn't have to be frightening, complicated or boring. Children learn through doing, playing and having fun, so we developed creative ways to help them understand their breathing — including asthma challenge badges, storytelling, treasure hunts and activities for schools and community groups.

We also began exploring the potential of singing as a way of supporting children with asthma, bringing together respiratory health and something children could simply enjoy.

The moment that we set BreathChamps up, everything changed

When the Coronavirus pandemic arrived, our work changed too.

We started working more with adults and began asking a bigger question:

Could we help create communities where people understand breathing problems and know how to support themselves and others?

That led to the idea of a 'breathing-friendly town' — starting in Trafford, Greater Manchester.

Rather than keeping respiratory health inside hospitals and clinics, we wanted to take it into everyday community life.

Breathing better through community

We began experimenting with what we now commonly call social prescribing — using enjoyable, social activities to support people's health and wellbeing.

Instead of telling people simply to exercise more, get outside or improve their wellbeing, we created activities where those things happened naturally, where people could be alongside others who understood the challenges of being breathless.

Over time, BreathChamps developed and supported:

• Singing for Lung Health — regular singing groups, both in person and online

• Dance Easy — accessible Latin American and ballroom dancing, seated or standing

• Forest Bathing — nature-based activities in locations across Trafford

• Asthma Challenge Badges for children and community groups

• Asthma storytelling and treasure hunts

• Asthma first aid and respiratory health training for teachers, coaches and community organisations

• Talks, events and community activities designed to make breathing knowledge more accessible and engaging

We wanted other communities to be able to copy us

One of the most important things we learned was that BreathChamps didn't need to do everything ourselves.

We developed resources, shared our experience through lots of talks and videos and supported community organisations to create their own breathing-friendly activities, or be empowered to look out for their beighbours.

Our aim was always to cascade ideas rather than create something that depended on BreathChamps continuing forever.

That became an important part of our legacy.

A community organisation, built by people who understood

Many of the people involved with BreathChamps — staff, volunteers, partners and supporters — had personal experience of respiratory conditions or of supporting someone who did.

That mattered.

It meant that our work was shaped not only by clinical knowledge, but by an understanding of what it actually feels like to live with breathing problems.

In 2020, BreathChamps became a Community Interest Company (CIC), formally establishing our commitment to creating social benefit through our work.

And now, BreathChamps has closed

After nearly a decade's testing and learning, BreathChamps closed in July 2026.

We decided that the organisation itself did not need to continue indefinitely for the ideas behind it to continue to be useful.

This website is therefore a legacy site.

It brings together some of the work, resources, ideas and experiences we developed along the way — in the hope that other people and organisations can learn from them, adapt them and perhaps take some of them further.

BreathChamps started with a simple idea:

Breathing better should be something we can all understand, support and enjoy. And we partnered with our community to make it stronger.

We hope that idea continues to breathe.