A Manchester woman has set up a running club for asylum seekers to help them manage ‘severe and complex trauma’.

Jane Dennison founded the MileShyClub in 2017 to support people who didn’t exercise regularly and has recently launched a group to support people in migrant hotels.

The organisation now operates in four Manchester boroughs, with 16 running clubs, nine walking clubs, and two mental health groups.

As well as its regular sessions, the charity also runs one-off projects, including a Couch to 5K group for asylum seekers.

Jane explained how the South Manchester migrant hotel was in the media because of the anti-social behaviour being directed towards the hotel.

“It suddenly clicked one day, I was watching the TV in the summer last year, and up the road from me was one of the migrant hotels,” Jane said. “It was on TV because of the amount of riots and anti-social behaviour being shown toward the hotel – and I was just mortified to see.”

“Even what your views are politically, there comes a point where you don’t treat people that way,” said Jane.

“I felt that was such a bad example of our community, when I work with so many people that do so much good.

“This was never about politics, oh I’m doing this because I’m left wing. It was never about that.

“It was simply delivering an exercise class to people in need to make them feel better physically and mentally, and to help manage severe, complex trauma.

“Ultimately my goal is to support people who have absolutely nothing, and that was that demographic.”

She contacted a local charity in September 2025 to suggest setting up a Couch to 5K group at the hotel.

After meeting with teams supporting residents at the hotel, she agreed a start date and time for a Monday morning in January.

“Then it was a matter of finding trainers, and the first week I had 15 pairs of trainers,” Jane said.

She managed to source donations from local and national companies, and one day she managed to bring in 50 pairs of trainers with her.

“It was just wonderful to be able to do it for them,”

Jane estimates that she distributed approximately 170 pairs of trainers to residents throughout the project.

Due to the mix of languages spoken in the hotel, Jane used hand gestures to help with communication.

She said her previous work with people with visual and hearing impairments came into good use as she understood the importance of visual cues.

“There was a lot of hand gestures, and everyone knows what the words well done mean, yeah, you’ve got this,” she said.

“I took my speaker with me, and I put on the international language of Michael Jackson.”

Jane ran the sessions once a week to begin with, and in the last three weeks she ran two sessions a week.

She took the sessions outside the hotel, running around South Manchester.

She kept the routes close to the hotel, for the safety of the group, and also so the men she was working with could trust her.

At the end of the project, Jane took two men from the hotel to Park Run with her.

Jane asked one of the men after Park Run, if he was going to get some sleep as he was also fasting for Ramadan.

He replied: “No, I’m too happy.”

Jane explained that the response to her running the project has been mostly positive.

“The response from the community has been unreal, it’s been amazing,” she said.

The project was only shared on social media afterwards due to concerns about potential backlash.

Jane believes there would be scope to re-run the project in summer when the need is there.