About Grass Roots Remedies
We are an Edinburgh & Glasgow based workers’ cooperative whose central philosophy is that herbal medicine is the medicine of the people and should be accessible to everyone. We offer a series of practical courses and workshops, run the Wester Hailes Community Herbal Medicine Clinic, and the North Edinburgh Community Herbal Clinic in Granton, support student herbalists with their clinical hours, grow herbs in the the Blackford Glen Medicine Garden, and produce simple resources to enable folks to practice herbalism at home. As of 2021 we have formed a collaboration with Nikki Darrell & Alex Duffy of the Plant Medicine School in Ireland to create the Plant Medicine School Scotland.
As a Co-op we are members of the Scottish Radical Herbal Network, the Association of Foragers, the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, Herbalists Without Borders UK, and the American Herbalists’ Guild.
Our Members:
Soraya Bishop
After reading Ecology & Conservation at The University of Edinburgh, Soraya spent 4 years as a community gardener in Wester Hailes & Craigmillar, Edinburgh growing food & foraging with folk. Now part of Grass Roots Remedies Co-op Soraya works with community groups in & around Edinburgh running courses & workshops. With a love of growing food & foraging for it’s ability to ground & connect us she has also studied her Diploma in Herbology, Permaculture Design Certificate, & has a love for birds, the hills, cooking & creating.
Ally Hurcikova
Ally is a Medical Herbalist (BSc Hons 2015), and Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild (AHG). She runs the Wester Hailes Community Herbal Clinic, and the North Edinburgh Community Herbal Clinic. where she loves supporting people’s psycho-emotional health with plant medicine. Ally is a trained first responder and is interested in where plant medicine and emergency medicine can meet. She is a keen permaculturalist, social justice activist & urban homesteader who loves being still in wild places, and talking to her wee son about plants.
Rhona Donaldson
Rhona has worked as a community gardener with The Health Agency in Wester Hailes since 2014. Working both in the therapeutic field and food growing, a natural next step was to pursue her interest in rediscovering the many medicinal uses of our native plants. With a degree in Ecology and the RHS certificate in Horticulture, Rhona will be involved in running workshops for community groups and developing new areas of the co-op. Rhona has a particular interest in emotional and mental health having witnessed the transformational effect of connection with our natural environment. This has led to work with disengaged children and those suffering from anxiety and depression. Outside of all this Rhona is a social justice activist with a love of pedalling the back roads of Scotland, climbing mountains, ceilidh dancing and wild swimming.
Catriona Gibson
Catriona is a Medical Herbalist (BSc MNIMH) and foraging tutor (AoF), offering consultations, seasonal walks and workshops across Glasgow. Catriona is interested in herbal medicine as it brings together her experiences working with people with chronic health problems and her interest in nature connection. She sees working with people to make their own medicines, with locally available plants as a means of enhancing environmental sustainability.
Our Facilitators:
Kathryn has also spent many years working in social care before training and graduating as a nurse in 2012. She has worked in acute medical and surgical wards and currently is a hospice nurse. She enjoys walks in nature, socialising with the ones she loves and making stuff with wool.
Kathryn McArthur
Kathryn graduated from the Edinburgh Napier University Herbal Medicine course in 2007 and since has been involved in devising Herbal Scotland CIC: a community interest company providing herbal first aid at festivals and events as well as workshops around Scotland. Connecting people with plants and keeping our native traditions alive is a passion. Through this work she connected with Ally and became involved in the Wester Hailes Community Herbal clinic and has been honoured to be part of it and seeing patients on a one to one basis. Her values are in keeping with those of the clinic and grass roots remedies – herbal medicine and knowledge should be accessible to all. Seeing the transformative effect that herbs have on people is inspiring either taken as medicine, learning about them or using them to make medicines or crafts.
Simone Melanie
Herbalist Simone Melanie has worked with plants for over 20 years, and adores everything green! She has a Medicine Garden at Kinghorn Loch where she grows a range of local medicinal plants, and teaches people how they can easily incorporate plants into their lives to maintain health and treat sickness. Simone really loves Mugwort and uses plants to open our minds to news ways of thinking and working with our green allies.You can visit Simone at her garden on the open days twice a month, to walk the medicine wheel and buy organically grown herbs and seeds, or email her to make an appointment. Simone also runs workshops at her garden throughout the year. See www.solarripe.eu for more information.
Audrey Marchbank
Audrey is a Medical Herbalist, graduating in 2007 with a Bsc (hons) in Herbal Medicine & Phytotherapy from Edinburgh’s Napier University. She has a long career in local government (Msc in Public Service Leadership) but her passion has always been herbal medicine, assisting people with their health and wellbeing in a natural holistic way. Audrey runs a small private clinic in Midlothian and is delighted to have become involved with Grass Roots Remedies in 2018. She practices at the Wester Hailes Community Herbal Clinic and helps out with workshops and herb walks. In addition, Audrey has a love of nature and can often be found pottering about in the great outdoors.
Jillian Faichney
Jillian is our clinic dispenser, tincture and product maker and course administrator.
Jillian studied and received a degree in Hospitality Management at university and also studied at the Scottish Massage School Edinburgh. She uses her diplomas to work as a Swedish massage and Clinical Aromatherapy therapist. She has recently completed courses with Grass Roots Remedies Wild things Year 1 and Wild things Year 2 online, and is on the Herbal Apprenticeship course with Plant Medicine School Scotland.
Having worked years as a charity shop manager she loves raising money for good causes and working with volunteers, but changed jobs to work with the local community more directly. Jillian has been using the Clinic, workshops and courses with Grass Roots Remedies from the beginning and now runs workshops in the local area of Wester Hailes. Her main loves are her son and allotment where they can both be found playing, growing and chilling. She also loves exercising and upcycling.
