Speaking Truth to Power

Change happens when people come together and demand it. The exciting new Speaking Truth To Power programme will help that to happen.

The programme supports people with direct experience of UK poverty to speak up and take action on its root causes.

We are bringing together people with a diverse range of personal experiences to speak truth to power both locally and nationally. We are working together to access and share tools, training and opportunities, so people can unleash their own power.

Participants will develop the skills, training and support to speak confidently and powerfully to local and national media, politicians and other power-holders. As people become effective campaigners and spokespeople in their own right, they will inspire others to action.

See what some of the participants have to say:

Speaking Truth to Power will include:

elements of popular education and peer learning
one-to-one support and a residential event
training in community reporting, social media, podcasting and engaging with the mainstream media
support for taking action on issues that people feel most passionately about
(where appropriate) the chance to speak truth to power directly to key decision-makers, locally or nationally.

The residential element is key to building strong peer support and networking between local partners. In our work over many years, we have come to see the value of peer support – creating opportunities for grassroots activists to build bonds of friendship with other like-minded people, to share stories and build networks of mutual solidarity.

Each participant will have access to a small funding pot (equivalent to £200-£400 per participant) for planning and delivering actions and events and to meet with other participants.

Participants will also have access to Church Action on Poverty’s links with the media, politicians and others, and a wider network of supporters, members and partners. This will mean we can all work together to build wider support for change around the issues chosen by the experts with personal experience, through campaigns and actions shaped, co-designed and led by experts by experience.

The programme builds on work we have been piloting with a number of local partners, including Martin Green of Urban Christians (Halifax); the ‘Food Glorious Food’ foodbank choir (Sheffield); the launch of End Hunger Cornwall; the opening of the first Welsh Local Pantry at Dusty Forge (Cardiff); and Edgelands, a drama collaboration between young people involved in the Darwen Gets Hangry campaign and a young local filmmaker.