Our Team

Jaime Thurston BEM – CEO and Founder of 52 Lives

Jaime manages all aspects of the School of Kindness. You can find out more about Jaime here, on the 52 Lives website. Jaime is a former journalist, charity worker and is the author of ‘Kindness – the little thing that matters most’ and ‘The Kindness Journal‘.

She has received numerous awards for her work. She was named in the King’s Birthday Honours List is 2023, receiving a British Empire Medal for services to charity. She was also named a Prime Minister’s Point of Light in 2015, Clarins Woman of the Year in 2016, and she was featured in The Independent’s Happy 50 List in 2018, celebrating people who make life better for others.

Greig Trout – Director of Kindness and Workshop Facilitator

Greig manages and delivers our Kindness Workshop programme, reviews application to The Kindness Fund and helps to develop our teaching resources. He is also the face, heart and soul of our Kids’ Kindness Club. Greig is an ex-CSI, turned adventurer, who overcame significant physical and mental health challenges and went on to develop a career as an inspirational speaker. From singing on stage at the Sydney Opera House, to teaching English, and volunteering with remote communities in Nicaragua … Greig’s wealth of life experience brings a distinctive level of enthusiasm and authenticity to everything he does.

Greig was named a Prime Minister’s Point of Light in 2019, and was also featured in The Independent’s Happy List in 2015, celebrating people who make life better for others.

Krish Patel – Workshop Facilitator (aka Captain Kindness)

Krish runs our Kindness Workshops in the Northwest of England. After a short career in professional football, Krish’s life completely changed as he went on a journey of self-discovery in the USA. From a young man only caring about materialistic things towards actually having empathy for the world around him. He created the Road 2 Uganda charitable campaign, completing four marathons in four consecutive days which led to the completion of a schoolhouse in Uganda. He swam 53 miles in the English Lake District (National Park) and created the Swim 4 Shelter campaign to raise awareness and help homeless people living on the streets of Manchester into an employment programme.

He prides himself on making a difference, whether that be through connecting with people through the School of Kindness or as the founder of his Tales to Inspire initiative, a platform he created to share stories of people around the world to encourage people to never give up.

Tanya Smith – Workshop Facilitator 

Tanya runs our Kindness Workshops online and is a copywriter, writing our School of Kindness Kids’ Club and School newsletters. Tanya has had a varied career, beginning with being an Advertising and Brand manager at Vodafone UK. After wanting to contribute more good into the world, she changed career to be a primary school teacher. Tanya taught for 14 years in Key Stage 1 and 2, including being Year Reception Leader in an outstanding Hampshire school. She was responsible for PSHE learning and introduced the teaching of mental health with children as young as 4-years-old.  She worked alongside a child psychotherapist and introduced ‘Feelings Fridays’ in Year R, with the goal of ensuring that children knew that all feelings are allowed – helping children to know what to do with the more uncomfortable feelings.

In her spare time Tanya loves to write.  She has a passion for creating children’s books that will make a difference, addressing important subjects, such as anxiety.  Continuing her love for creativity, she writes poetry, is a keen photographer and enjoys drawing and illustrating.  Tanya also has two daughters, a Scottish husband and a house plant called George!

Louise Brown – Kindness Administrator

Lou is a master of organisation who keeps the School of Kindness running smoothly. Lou previously worked as a project manager in the branding industry, and lives in Essex with her husband and 2 children.

As well as keeping everything and everyone organised, she is also one of the kindest people you could ever hope to meet!

Our Honorary Scientific Advisor

Dr David R. Hamilton – Honorary Scientific Advisor 

We are very honoured to have the support of Dr David Hamilton, who acts as a voluntary advisor to our School of Kindness. David has a PhD in organic chemistry and spent 4 years in the pharmaceutical industry, developing drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer. Inspired by the placebo effect, he left the industry to write books and educate people in how they can harness their mind and emotions to improve their health. He is now author of 10 books, including, ‘How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body’, ‘I Heart Me’ and ‘The Five Side Effects of Kindness’.  David is an advocate for kindness and is working passionately to help inspire a kinder world.

Our Patron

Emily Coxhead – Patron

We welcomed Emily as the first Patron of the 52 Lives charity in 2021. Emily is a British designer, illustrator, best-selling author and founder of The Happy News, a newspaper celebrating only good news. Her aim is to add a little bit of sunshine to people’s lives.​
Emily has been a supporter of our work from our very early days, and has already helped us to spread our message of kindness to hundreds of thousands of people.
She embodies so many of the things we stand for – compassion, creating strong communities, and the incredible power of kindness.

The School of Kindness is proudly sponsored by