The Diva Day Spa Healing and Retreat Centre, located just outside of Baltimore in the city of Upperco, is a labor of love ten years in the making.
Cindy Tawiah, a registered nurse, left the medical field in 2004 to pursue a second career in haircare but felt drawn to creating a holistic healing experience.
“I’ve always had that gift of anointing, that gift of talking to people, counseling people, and helping women,” she explained to Travel Noire. “I had run my salon like a healing center and a wellness place. Women came there to bare their soul, to really unwind, to let go. It wasn’t about their hair anymore. What it became about is the issues that were going on with women socially, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.”
After closing her salon in 2010, Tawiah started trying to resuscitate the long dormant dream. She began sourcing locations that would feel like a second home, where her clients could relax and enjoy a transformative experience. But after a year, and investing a considerable amount of her savings into her efforts, the deal fell through.
The West Ghana native was devastated but rebounded by developing the first natural haircare vending machine. However, in 2020, she was moved to try again. This time everything fell into place.
“I managed to purchase the location of my dreams on an acre of property where we have all the healing elements,” she shared. “We have hydrotherapy or the jet spa. We have the infrared sauna, which helps with increased immunity especially during this COVID-19 and with weight loss and fibromyalgia. We have facials, massages, and counseling services. We even have a relationship expert on hand and psychotherapists if anybody needs one. We have every element that women need, and we do candle making workshops, soap making workshops, pillow making workshops; anything that women can put their hand to.”
Tawiah’s passion shines through in talking about the venture and for good reason. As a domestic violence survivor, these are the tools she would have loved to have at her disposal. And as a nurse, she has seen other women who also needed these resources.
“As a registered nurse, we were always taught to have compassion for your patients, but you have to detach; don’t get too involved with a patient. You look at a woman who’s laying there. Her blood pressure is up. She’s having heart palpitations and the blood pressure being up is not because of her diet. It’s because of a situation in her life— maybe a family or spousal situation that caused that stress, that led to elevated blood pressure. But nobody is addressing the root cause of it. It’s like we have to get to the root cause because I realized the trauma that I had gone through as a child, as a teenager or adolescent, or as a young adult. Anytime that I went [to someone] nobody was asking what is really going on with you, how are you really feeling?”
Tawiah hopes that The Diva Day Spa Healing and Retreat Center can be a catalyst for change in the lives of all the women who walk through the doors. It’s the type of establishment that she believes that society needs now more than ever.
“They’re going to wellness places but they’re not getting what they need. They need that whole element: mind, body, and spirit; all the elements together in order to heal.”
Find out more information about The Diva Day Spa Healing and Retreat Centre.
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