Our Staff and Trustees

Meena Kalsi is the Founder and Director of Community Calm CIC and an integrative healthcare practitioner working at the intersection of clinical practice, social care, and community‑based mental health research. She specialises in nature‑based recovery programmes that address the social, cultural, and environmental determinants of mental health for adults experiencing anxiety, low mood, social isolation, or post‑crisis vulnerability.

Her clinical background spans Ayurvedic Healthcare, Yoga Therapy (MSc), and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), supported by ongoing supervised training at the London South Bank University Confucius Institute Teaching Clinic and regular clinical development in India. Alongside her community work, she runs a private integrative clinic, where she observed that many patients’ recovery needs extended beyond clinical treatment into social care, cultural safety, and environmental stressors—insights that shaped Community Calm’s non‑clinical, socially attuned pathways.

Her research interests focus on nature connection, routine‑building, cultural safety, and peer support in long‑term mental health recovery, particularly for underserved and culturally diverse communities. She is developing academic and clinical research partnerships to strengthen the evidence base for green social prescribing, with an emphasis on outcomes measurement, accessibility, and reducing psychological distress and social isolation.

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Soudabeh Barkhordar is a textile designer with seven years of community volunteering experience, particularly within arts‑based projects. Through her work, she has supported many people living with mental health challenges, using creativity as a gentle and accessible way to build confidence, expression, and connection.

Soudabeh first joined Community Calm during a difficult period in her own life, after being referred by her Social Prescriber. She describes her first day with the group as a turning point: a space where her anxiety eased, she felt calmer, and she experienced a sense of welcome and safety. Having previously volunteered in a community project coordinated by the founder of Community Calm, she already understood the value of compassionate, inclusive support — and she immediately recognised that Community Calm offered something unique.

Her positive experience inspired her to become more involved. Soudabeh joined the Board because she wanted to give back, support others on their recovery journeys, and help people reach their personal goals in the same way she was supported. She brings lived experience, creativity, cultural insight, and a deep commitment to community wellbeing.

Hesham Motan is a senior business leader with extensive experience leading multi‑market teams and complex regional operations across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. His career includes executive roles at Revlon and L’Oréal, where he specialised in strategic growth, governance, operational excellence, and partnership development across diverse markets.

At Community Calm, Hesham provides executive leadership that strengthens governance, long‑term planning, and organisational resilience. He supports the CIC with strategic guidance, operational structure, and sustainable growth planning, ensuring the organisation can expand while protecting its core ethos of safety, cultural sensitivity, and nature‑based recovery.

My professional life has taken me on an unusual but deeply connected path. I began my career in an environmental laboratory analysing the nutritional content of food, before following a long‑held creative instinct into photography. After completing a photography course at college, I moved into publishing, specialising in wildlife and travel as both a photographer and picture researcher. For many years this was my world — observing, documenting, and celebrating the natural environment and the stories held within it.

After the birth of my two children, I felt called toward a different kind of work: something more relational, more grounded in care. I retrained in complementary therapy and, for the past six years, I have worked in the palliative care sector. This role has shaped my understanding of what it means to support people at their most vulnerable — with presence, gentleness, and genuine human connection.​

We are living in a time marked by remoteness: remote working, remote learning, remote appointments, remote friendships. So much of life now happens through screens, and while technology has its place, it cannot replace the healing power of being physically present with one another.

I believe that true health and wellbeing come from reconnecting — with each other, with nature, and with the physical world around us. We need spaces that encourage real conversation, shared experience, and a sense of belonging. Community Calm offers exactly that. It is a place where people can slow down, feel included, and rediscover the grounding, nurturing qualities of nature and human connection.

As a trustee, I am committed to supporting Community Calm because I see how essential this work is. It brings people back into relationship — with themselves, with others, and with the natural world — and in doing so, it helps rebuild the foundations of wellbeing that so many of us have lost.

Hi, I’m Nicola.

I first came to Community Calm during a difficult period in my life, and the sessions quickly became something I genuinely looked forward to each week. They offered connection, routine, and a space where I felt understood.

I’m now a proud volunteer at Community Calm, and I love welcoming new members into the group. I also enjoy teaching everyone British Sign Language, which has become a fun and meaningful part of our sessions. With my own lived experience of mental health challenges, I bring empathy, understanding, and a gentle approach to supporting others as they settle in.

I look forward to welcoming you to the group, Nicola x