About Us
Phoebe and Dwayne believe that the next generation – from all walks of life – need to see and fall in love with the wonderful wilderness and wildlife of their local areas and understand the relationship between what we do here and how it affects the rest of the world (and vice versa) so that they will fight to protect it.
That’s why they have set up the #WeTwo Foundation. Our aim is to inspire the next generation using the tool of adventure. We plan to run an expedition every year, taking with us a group of underprivileged young people to key destinations all over the planet. On each expedition, they will be taking part in citizen science: helping with vital research and adding experience to their own CV. Pre-trip they will be ‘paying it forward’ by participating in environmental, conservation, and youth initiatives in their local communities.
Seeing as the focus is on responsible and sustainable adventures, before each trip all participants will plant enough trees to offset all carbon emissions produced on the expedition.
By doing this the #WeTwo Foundation will be ensuring that the legacy of #WeTwo becomes #WeToo. We are not trying to re-write the achievements of explorers of the past – which we respect and admire deeply, but we simply want to help diversify what so far has been dominated by one ‘type’ of person. This will empower everyone to realise that they can achieve their goals no matter what and that you can do so while also protecting nature for everyone.
trustees
Dwayne Fields
Co-founder of the Foundation and Trustee
At age six, Dwayne came to North London from Jamaica. All the freedom he enjoyed on his tropical island seemed to vanish overnight. He had to adapt, and in adapting, he gave up on the outdoors. He became depressed and mixed up in the wrong crowd… gangs. Fast forward to his early twenties, one incident in Hackney changed his life. Forever. A gun was pointed at him, he was shot at – at point-blank range. It misfired. Twice! He has also been a victim of gang knife crime when he was stabbed in the chest and stomach.
Dwayne decided that he wanted to do something that could inspire inner-city kids, showing them that this is NOT the path they need to follow.
In 2010, as a protest to gang violence and a slap in the face of stereotypes, Dwayne walked to the Magnetic North Pole, becoming the first black Briton to achieve this feat, later that year he was also named Choice FM’s Role Model of the Year. On his return he was invited to Buckingham Palace at a reception to mark the centenary of Scott’s expedition to the South Pole in the presence of the HRH Queen Elizabeth II.
Since then he has dedicated his life to helping urban youth by focusing on outdoor activities, such as walking and climbing. In 2018 he led a group of inner-city London youths on a series of challenges which culminated in them climbing Ben Nevis – known as Street to Peak. As a result Dwayne has been awarded the ‘Freedom of the City of London’ by its Lord Mayor. Dwayne is a dedicated Ambassador for the Scout Association, the National Trust the Woodland Trust and Ordnance Survey.
Phoebe Smith
Co-founder of the Foundation; Chair and Trustee
Phoebe grew up in an area affectionately known by the National Press as ‘Costa Del Dole’, where she was constantly told she couldn’t and shouldn’t aspire to ever leave and pursue a life of adventure. With no female role models in the media to inspire, she thought the outdoors was not a welcoming place. But then after working in pubs and saving all her money she embarked on a trip to Australia that would change her life. She discovered a free and easy way to explore the natural world – wild camping.
Since then she’s become a self-confessed extreme sleeping addict, eschewing her bed to sleep wild whenever she can – from caves to mountain tops, disused farmsteads and under giant boulders – if it’s in a wild place she wants to take her sleeping bag and experience a wild night out. She has since seen her love of wilderness take her on solo adventures all around the world – from Everest Base Camp in Nepal, to portaledging in trees in the Bavarian Alps and bedding down inside glaciers in Svalbard – the last stop before the North Pole.
In 2014 she became the first person to camp at all the extreme points of mainland Britain, solo, on consecutive nights. Wanting to use her passion for sleeping wild to change the lives of those who don’t get the choice, in 2017 she gave up her Christmas to raise money for Centrepoint (the young people’s homeless charity), by Sleeping the 3 Peaks and raising over £8k. In 2018 she completed a 10-night Extreme Sleep Out where she slept dangling from 10 UK landmarks for charity, raising a further £20k and for Christmas 2018 she raised over £16k by walking from Sunderland to Cumbria, solo, sleeping rough and dressed as Wander Woman in her self-devised Hadrian Hundred for Homeless.
Phoebe has proudly been an Ordnance Survey #GetOutside Champion since 2016 in recognition of her work encouraging everyone to enjoy the great outdoors and coining the hashtag on social media. She is ambassador for the annual Big Canopy Campout (which helps raise funds for the World Land Trust), as well as Wild Night Out – the UK’s national night of adventure. She is also president of the Long Distance Walkers Association.
It’s her on-going mission to prove that you don’t need to be a beard-sporting, rufty-tufty, I’ll-eat-a-dead-sheep-carcass type to have an adventure!
An award-winning travel writer – current Sustainability Writer of the Year (Travel Media Awards), author (Extreme Sleeps, Wilderness Weekends et al), photographer, host of the Wander Woman Travel Podcast and broadcaster, Phoebe will be helping to document Team #WeTwo’s trip to share with the world.
Morwhenna Woolcock
Trustee
Having a Brain Haemorrhage aged just 12 and having to learn to walk again after being paralysed down her left-hand side, Morwhenna knows all about over coming challenges from a young age.
Forever curious, Morwhenna hasn’t let her disability stop her from exploring and after cycling from Paris to Portsmouth over 3 and a half days on a specially adapted bike, she realised that there’s usually a way to do what you set your mind on. Being fitted with a StimUStep walking aid in 2008 [making her sort of
Bionic!] improved her mobility further as she was able to walk further and longer than she ever thought possible.
A mental breakdown in 2011 led Morwhenna to rediscover just how important Creativity, Adventure and Nature are to her physical and mental wellbeing, and since then she has taken on many person self- funded projects and adventures that combine all three elements from walking over 121 miles as part of a personal pilgrimage following in St. Morwenna’s footsteps whilst raising funds for the Stroke Association, to travelling around Thailand solo and currently being inspired by the Islands around the coast of Britain – and hopefully inspiring others along the way to go on their own creative adventures – whatever they may be and with whatever resources they have. Adventure is a mindset.
When not ‘Creative Adventuring’ – Morwhenna works part-time for Creativity Works, an arts charity that champions creativity as a way to support people’s wellbeing.
Dale Piercy
Trustee
Dale has built up a career within the National Health Service over many years in his role as a Senior Support Analyst. Prior to this he enjoyed a career in the service sector and before that completed his university studies in Multimedia Graphic design. He’s a proud Londoner and even prouder to be one of the Trustees at the #WeTwo Foundation. Dale says: “Living in London for the most part is great, it’s a multi-cultural, vibrant city that seems to never sleep but it does have its challenges which range from poverty and youth crime to what feels like a pandemic of poor aspirational goals amongst the many of the most deprived youth in our communities. This is why I believe so strongly in the aims and objectives of this Foundation.” We are thrilled and privileged to have Dale onboard.