Our Mission
Our mission is to shift the culture of social movements towards one that centers and embodies 'care', for ourselves, nature and each other, so that we no longer reproduce the isolating and extractive nature of oppressive systems. We do this by creating, exploring and sharing practices, spaces and resources that nurture collective care with and for activists, organisers, creatives and healers.
Our Vision
We imagine a world where social movements are not stunted by urgency, exhaustion and individualism but are rooted in creative, embodied and connected systems of care.
About Us
We are a collective of queer women and non-binary organisers, artists, and healers rooted in South and Southeast Asia, brought together by a shared reckoning with burnout, relational harm, and emotional exhaustion within our activist and healing spaces. After years of resisting systems like patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism, we saw how more often than not, social movements are replicating the very harms we sought to dismantle. Collective Wellness was born from this recognition—that care is not a luxury or an afterthought, but central to building sustainable, liberatory movements.Since 2022, we’ve co-created retreats and gatherings in Thailand and the Philippines to explore care, joy, and healing as political practices. Grounded in somatics, storytelling, and collective reflection, our work centers rest, pleasure, and connection as antidotes to urgency and overwork. We are focused on collating resources, literature, practices from the wider network, and facilitating spaces that engage activists, organisers, revolutionary artists and wellness practitioners around what really constitutes care, what are the enabling factors, what can it look like personally for leaders and collectively for communities.This work includes running annual retreats, workshops, embodiment sessions, creative expressive sessions, revolutionary book club and now we are working on creating an anthology to help people to engage with the learnings of our constellation through narrative and art.
Our Flagship Retreats
Collective Wellness Retreat 2023
Lamphun, Thailand
"This retreat was a timely reminder of the things I need in order to stay healthy for the people and the work I love. It was wonderful to spend two days in nature with kind folks, great food, and time to reflect."
- Retreat Participant, Collective Wellness Retreat 2023
During our first retreat in 2023 in Lamphun, Thailand, we gathered activist communities in and around Thailand, Singapore, and Myanmar, inviting them not just to attend but to co-create the programming with us. The retreat focused on understanding, deconstructing, and strategising around what collective wellness could look like. Through participants’ sharings and testimonials, it became clear how urgent this space was. The Myanmar coup, climate collapse, and increasing authoritarianism had led to a fast-spreading burnout across our circles. People were moving from crisis to crisis, with no time or space to process grief or to resource themselves.
Eros Retreat 2025
San Juan, La Union, Philippines
Held in March 2025 in collaboration with Emerging Islands, an artist-activist residency based in the historic surf town of La Union, Philippines, we hosted over 15 organisers, artists, and somatic practitioners based in Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, and the United States. We centred the retreat around Eros, as theorised by Audre Lorde which is a lifeforce, a source of creativity, connection, and personal and collective power.This 4-day retreat in La Union, Philippines,** centered expressive art, connection to nature, sensory play, somatic yoga, and sustaining social movements and community care through joy, play and pleasure.
"Thank you to the collective wellness retreat team for facilitating the Eros Retreat that allowed us to surrender to Eros, the depth of our hearts and feelings, joy, love, each other, the ocean and revolution. What a gift it was to both play and laugh while plotting the downfall of imperialism!"
- Mitzi Jonelle, Climate Activist and Co-founder of youth advocates for climate action Philippines, Eros Retreat 2025
Our Care Constellation
Join us to recharge, reconnect, and reimagine the ways we can thrive together.
BINSI THAILAND
Film Farm School, Lamphun, ThailandEMERGING ISLANDS
Artist-Activist Residency, La Union, PhilippinesYOUR HEAD LAH!
Brown-led Mental Health Collective, SingaporeGOOD NEIGHBORS SOLIDARITY COLLECTIVE
Anti-Racist Coalition, Chiang Mai, Thailand
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@collectivewellness.retreat