Hi everyone,
Natasha (Outlandish) and I are standing for the two Co-operatives UK board seats representing worker co-operatives. We’ve been endorsed by workers.coop and would love your support, voting is open now and closes 27th May.
Natasha and I are both working to better link up the co-op sector, starting first with getting the big co-ops to use co-operative tech/tech agencies.
A bit more about us both below:
Mikaela Raphael (Agile Collective)
Mikaela Raphael is a worker-owner at Agile Collective. She is an active participant in CoTech, workers.coop, and is engaged in local co-operative organising via Paula’s Housing Co-op, Stirchley Co-operative Development, and Co-operation Birmingham.
Mikaela’s relationship with the co-operative movement began in 2014 when she lived for three years in the Berkeley Student Cooperatives. She later supported organising efforts within a small-scale agricultural workers’ co-op in southern Senegal. These formative experiences gave her a grounded, international perspective on co-operation as both a practical tool and a transformative model.
Now based in the UK, she brings cross-sector experience spanning housing, technology, and labour - and a commitment to building the connective tissue of the wider movement. Mikaela is standing for the Co-ops UK board to strengthen worker co-operative representation, deepen collaboration across co-operative models, and help build a more unified movement across the UK.
Natasha Natarajan (Outlandish Co-operative)
Natasha is a worker-owner of Outlandish Co-operative. Her primary role has been in movement building through their cooperative coworking space in Finsbury Park, SPACE4. But she’s been equally involved in steering the business through a challenging transition, learning the true colours of cooperation and solidarity.
Natasha came to the cooperative movement in 2022 as an artist, researching worker cooperatives for freelancers in the creative industries as part of her MA. Joining Outlandish soon after was a dream made real, her academic work became a lived experience and turning her into a passionate and grounded champion of worker-coops.
She’s organised, hosted, facilitated, and spoken at 300+ events, embedding herself in the various intersecting ecosystems of the coop movement. She is currently co-delivering a nine-month business accelerator with Workers.coop, coordinates the CoTech network, and is continuously partnership-building across the sector.
Natasha is standing for the Coops UK board to make sure that the biggest umbrella organisation for Coops in the UK doesn’t forget the value of worker-ownership and maintains a strong duty towards the worker cooperative movement.
. Good luck to you both and thank you very much for standing to represent us!