Community Wellbeing Collective

We are the Community Wellbeing Collective (CWC) a grassroots group of people living in or connected to Wester Hailes, Edinburgh. Together we transformed a derelict former off-license in Westside Plaza Shopping Centre into a Community Wellbeing Space, run by and for the people. We were brought together in 2021 by social-practice artist Jeanne van Heeswijk, as part of a commission by Edinburgh Art Festival and WHALE Arts. The CWC is now its own constituted organisation which works in partnership with Edinburgh Art Festival.

In August 2022 we opened the Community Wellbeing Space a unique space where members run free wellbeing activities with more than 600 people accessing the space each month. We are a community-run charity which grew out of the need for more wellbeing in an area and the imagination and motivation to make a change! 

Our free accessible activities run by members of the community include yoga, mindfulness meditation, creative writing, herbal remedies workshops, weekly nutritious hot meals and much more. Alongside being a free public sober space to take respite, enjoy a cup of tea and just be. 

Wester Hailes is a working class area of disproportionate poverty which affects mental and physical health. While there are other amazing organizations in the area, we fill a much needed gap. Without us, there are no sober spaces to gather outside of working hours and on weekends, no places that can be accessed by drop-in, no places in such a central accessible location. We create a space that is truly run by the community where the skills of our lived experience can be shared, which is diverse and combats isolation, where we can imagine and create new ways of being and healing together and addressing inequalities in the world. 

Care for self and community changes the world from inside out!