Jana Mills: People are what’s needed to make change happen

Stephanie Wong: The joy of communities

Today I speak with Stephanie Wong about the power and joy of communities.

Stephanie shares that her passion to work with and support communities comes from realising that communities are what supported her through difficult times as well as times of joy – rather than our more traditional state structures.

Stephanie has a deep held belief that change happens when people stand together – and that the greater the dream the more people need to be involved. For her there is a sense that communities can disrupt and change the systems which often cause oppression and division within our society.

We also talk a lot about joy and how fundamental it is in creating change. Not only does it sustain us but also allows more creativity and encourages other to join.

@actbuildchange
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephleonard/

Ruhie Kumar: The campaigner inside of my will never stop but will come out in different forms

This week, I have the pleasure of speaking with Ruhie Kumar, a climate change campaigner and communications specialist who has worked with civil society groups as well as large campaigning organisations including Greenpeace India.

Ruhie shares her experience of campaigning from getting into unexpectedly through an internship at Greenpeace Australia and how her campaigning has evolved over time with her current emphasis being on networking and organising.

We also touch on the importance of values – and discuss how sometimes there appears to be a lack of empathy within campaigning. Ruhie also shares her experience of applying the values that show up in her campaign communications to her every day life – and how it is daily work to act in line with your own values.

Connect with Ruhie:
instagram: ruhey_climatebabbler
Twitter:@ruhie

Anthea Lawson: When activism becomes a practice instead of a set of goals we chase

Anthea - Journalist, campaigner and author of the Entangled Activist- is today’s wonderful guest.

This is one of those conversations which helps you think differently about activism. Anthea shares with us the importance of looking at the inner life of activism, which means looking at ourselves and how this shows up in how we campaign – which goes against the grain of the dominant white western culture.

Anthea shares with us her experience of being in campaigning roles and noticing that the organisations were actually replicating the system they were trying to change – for instance Human Rights organisations where staff were being treated badly.

Being curious Anthea spoke with other campaigners and looked to see what was missing – and it was ourselves. As campaigners we don’t often take the time to look at ourselves – our values, desires and behavours that we adopt and replicate because of the culture and systems we have grown up in and operate in.

This leads to the question of what we can do different and that’s where we discussed seeing activism as a daily practice where we consider what we do every day and how we can live our lives in a way that brings about change. Rather than a set of goals we chase we often brings about burn out and feelings that what we do will never be good enough.

Jana Mills: People are what’s needed to make change happen

This week, Jana, Executive Director of Small Axe, shares with me his belief that to make positive change happen we need mass participation – through movements as well as competitive and meaningful elections.

Jana talks shares his view that in our current democracy, often, decisions are made by a small group of individuals – and how this doesn’t always lead to positive change. His challenge to this is mass participation, where large groups of people are involved in decision making which, while harder, leads to greater accountability and trust as well as better outcomes.

We also talk about motivation and how campaigners can keep going when change seems tough – his answer comes from a line in Frozen!

Nafula Wafula - it takes courage to speak out

This week I speak with Nafula Wafula about people power and the courage it takes to speak out.

Nafula is an activist based in Kenya and she shares that her first true understanding of people power was in high school when she staged a protest after seeing a student being beaten. She mobilised other students to walk out the school gate. Nafula, and the others, spoke out despite the fear of consequences – and they were listened to.

Nafula’s passion for speaking out continued – she’s an activist as well as supporting other change makers as part of her work for Change.org.

In our chat we talk about the courage it takes to speak out against power – knowing there could be negative consequences – and how we can support change makers to take this brave step. We talked about the importance of sharing skills, standing in solidarity with others as well as challenging the shrinking space there is for civil society to speak out.