I remember watching Mama Mia on a plane going on holiday some years ago. I had put the DVD onto a device I owned at the time and was deighted to be able to watch it in peace wearing my newly purchased Bose headphones. I felt like a winner as I listened to the famous Abba song in a rare moment of me time after a busy working year. It was a welcome achievement and felt like a reward for all my hard work.

I share my life with 3 sports mad men – my husband and sons love to follow their football teams and are keen fans of cricket and rugby too. They play sport and are involved in a Special Needs football side where they coach and play together. I am always very proud when they win and bring back trophies of course. I am even more proud when they celebrate the wins of others.

I am nonetheless uneasy about the way we idolise winners – I do think that the cult of winning I see operating in the USA and in the UK is often taken too far and fails to address critically the idea of what a win is. Winning is often seen in terms of financial reward, career sucess, management positions and power. The winner is the top of the pile of, by extension, losers. If we look at those who might by some criteria be considered winners in terms of a capitalist society they include millionnaires, Royals, CEOs and celebrities from many backgrounds. The fact that some of these winners are from less privileged backgrounds is often cited as evidence that meritocracy works, I have shared my feelings about this doctrine in the past. Often such winners have benefitted from good fortune, being in the right place at the right time. Of course they will say they have worked hard to get there, they deserve their winnings. Who am I to dispute that? everyone likes to be rewarded for their endeavours. My unease comes from the hierarchy that winning creates, an uncritical pyramid which relies on the supression of those who have the odds stacked against them. The fact is those folk are rarely winners and are unlikely to win in a game where the playing field is uneven.

I am going to suggest new definition of Winners.

Winners are those who, for example:

• provide care for us and nurture others
• offer support and aid to those they don’t even know
• bring cheer and hope to those in despair
• cherish the abilities of those who are often derided by others
• make the most of what they have to live a full life in the face of adversity
• those who advocate for others who cannot speak for themselves
• those who speak truth to power

You won’t find your billionnaire tech leaders here, those who are self obsessed and exploitative. Instead you will find teachers, nurses, doctors, carers and many more ordinary people who, every day, despite little recognition, work together to help others the best they can. I want a world where they get the recognition they deserve, where CARE is valued. Where winners don’t take it all, rather they give it all to make the world a better place for everyone.