Meet WEAll Scotland’s new team members

WEAll Scotland is growing.

As the wellbeing economy movement becomes a bigger force for change in Scotland and the UK, we’ve expanded our team of staff and volunteers. The thing we all have in common? Belief in and passion for a wellbeing economy—in Scotland and around the world.

Keep reading to say hello to the latest additions to the WEAll Scotland team.

Dr Lukas Hardt – Policy and Engagement Lead

I am super excited to have started my new role as Policy and Engagement Lead for WEAll Scotland! I am passionate about building a wellbeing economy because our current economic system is not working. The relentless focus on economic growth has come at a large cost to the climate and the wider environment. At the same time, millions of people are still going hungry across the world (including in Scotland).

Up to now, I mostly studied and researched wellbeing economics in an academic context. Earlier this year, I finished my PhD research on how to transform the sectoral structure of our economy towards a wellbeing economy. Academic research is extremely important for understanding how we can redesign our economic system, but it has also often felt very theoretical for my taste. In the past, I pursued different voluntary activities to apply my passion beyond academia—for example, setting up a local currency during my undergraduate degree in St Andrews, becoming an organiser of the Post-growth Economics Network, and volunteering for WEAll.

Working as Policy and Engagement Lead for WEAll opens an exciting new chapter in my life. It allows me to focus my time and energy on developing wellbeing economics not only with academics, but with the amazing people who are already making it happen on the ground. For example, I will be helping to develop cornerstone indicators with communities in the Cairngorms National Park and supporting a cross-party parliamentary group on wellbeing economics. There are so many more inspired politicians, citizens, businesses, and community projects making their mark in Scotland right now. I can’t wait to learn from them and work with them to build a wellbeing economy together. 

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Frances Rayner – Communications Lead

Having spent the last decade working in comms and campaigns for a range of social and environmental causes in Scotland, I am beyond excited to bring this altogether to work towards the ultimate policy solution – a wellbeing economy.

I believe that most of us yearn for a different kind of economy and society. We long for connection. We want to know that we and our neighbours will have what we need to live with dignity and participate in our communities. And we want to protect our planet for future generations. Our challenge now is simply to bring the vision of a wellbeing economy to life. To show how we can redesign our economy so it delivers what truly matters to humanity. In the words of Toni Cade Bambara, “to make revolution irresistible.”

I am in awe of the work the WEAll team and allies have achieved to date, and I’ve been moved to see just how strongly the organisation embodies wellbeing economy values in its organisational culture and working practices.

I’m confident that together we can create an unstoppable movement.

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Patrick Wiggins – Associates Lead

I am really excited to join WEALL Scotland as Associates Lead, where I will be helping to coordinate and plan projects and commissions.

I have spent my career working in economic development and regeneration – dealing with the consequences of a system that doesn’t work for so many people. It’s time to address  the systemic causes of inequalities and fractured communities rather than trying to patch them up. Wellbeing thinking helps us do that. 

I hate injustice, social and climate, and in some small way want to do something about it. The economic system prioritises individual wealth accumulation and growth, at the expense of the planet, over meeting peoples’ needs and wellbeing. People and the planet should be served by the economy, not the economy served by people and the planet.

The application of principles of the Wellbeing Economy is a route to making that shift. So joining the fantastic, and enthusiastic, team working to mainstream Wellbeing thinking in Scotland is a great way  to try and make that a reality. I’m really looking forward to it.

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Denisha Killoh – Trustee

I’m Denisha, and after an incredible 18 months as a participation volunteer, I am delighted to be appointed as a trustee, marking a new chapter in my journey at WEAll Scotland.

I first learned about the term ‘wellbeing economy’ as the Stigma Co-Chair at the Independent Care Review, where Katherine Trebeck (co-founder of WEAll Scotland) wrote our ‘The Money’ report. This work explored how much it costs Scotland to deliver the ‘failure demand’ services required to support adults with care experience as a result of them being failed by the ‘care system’ as children. This way of thinking about how to solve our social issues, arguing to invest preventatively upstream rather than reactively downstream, is why I am so passionate about building a wellbeing economy, because it can’t be done without putting marginalised communities in the driving seat.

It is an honour to be given more responsibility to deliver this aim and shape the strategic direction of an organisation I truly love. I can’t wait to get started!

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Daisy Narayanan – Trustee

I am an architect and urban designer. Over the last decade, my work has focussed on sustainable transport and climate action. I came to Edinburgh in 2004 to complete my master’s degree, fell in love with this incredible city and stayed.

As we respond to the climate crisis, I feel it is even more urgent to find new ways of working, to put the focus firmly on the wellbeing of people and planet. Only then can we collaboratively shape our cities and towns to be fairer, kinder, healthier and truly resilient.

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Satwat Rehman – Trustee

Structural inequalities and injustice are the root cause of the issues that I have worked and campaigned against all my life: climate change, racism, poverty, and gender inequality, to name but a few. At the heart of the matter is an economic system which values growth and wealth creation for the few. I truly believe we need to change what we value as important and move to a wellbeing economy—with people and planet at its heart. We need to have the ambition to move beyond mitigation and managing inequalities to developing a new way of thinking and doing which enables the creation of a wellbeing economy with justice and equality as its bedrock.

This is why I am so pleased to join the board of WEAll Scotland and look forward to working with the team.

To end with the words of Arundhati Roy, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”