Changemakers

Can squatters ever hope to become land owners? An inspiring story from Thailand shows what it takes for poor people to rebuild the city around them. www.changemakerspodcast.org

What is a church doing running a facility where illegal drugs can be used openly? And why? https://changemakerspodcast.org/

The road to marriage equality in Australia was filled with dirty tricks and homophobia. How did the LGBTI community build a movement strong enough to overcome it all? http://changemakerspodcast.org/

In Cape Town, apartheid pushed black residents to the edge of the city. Reclaim the city is a movement pushing back, desegregating the city through strategic long term occupations. http://changemakerspodcast.org/

This is the origin story of the largest anti-Trump organisation in America and how it built a mass based local movement to save affordable healthcare. http://changemakerspodcast.org/

In 2014 Hong Kong hundreds of thousands of citizens staged a mass street occupation demanding the vote. Why did it happen? And what led to tensions building inside the movement overtime? http://changemakerspodcast.org/

What can we learn when a Hollywood TV show gets into ChangeMaking? Comedy show Brooklyn 99 took on police racism. How did they do it in a way that people didn’t turn off? http://changemakerspodcast.org/

In many parts of the world politicians are increasingly scapegoating refugees, and in the process denying them their human rights. But there is one country that’s decided to treat refugees with basic human decency. Uganda doesn't lock up its refugees. Instead, they live in settlements with freedom of movement, access to land and education. What can the rest of the world learn from Uganda?

Have you ever clicked on an online petition and wondered whether it worked? In 2016, GetUp - an Australian digital campaign organisation best known for its online petitions and email campaigns - decided to go offline. They came up a strategy to remove extreme conservative politicians from the Australian parliament. One of the places they went to was the seat of Bass in Northern Tasmania - a seat n...

What does it take to improve the lives of millions of people? The late Fred Hollows knew. He was known across the globe for his groundbreaking work in disrupting the global medical establishment, and his legacy lives on among the doctors he inspired. His most famous student, Dr Sanduk Ruit, has helped bring sight to over 125 000 people and trained thousands more doctors. In the process, he has dir...

What would you do if someone wanted to bulldoze an oil pipeline through your country, threatening not just your land, but your water and air? And what if the nation backing them had a history of playing dirty? That’s the situation the people in today’s episode found themselves in. The battle over building an oil pipeline in Standing Rock in South Dakota, USA. Should they take the high road? Or res...

What would you do if someone wanted to illegally concrete over your local park, and build an apartment block on it? And what would you do if the authorities supported the illegal construction? Today episode looks at how to organise genuine opposition in a place where the one thing they hate is genuine opposition. How a small protest against destruction of a local park turned into a mass movement t...

This is the second part of an exploration into how anger can be channelled into powerful actions. Part two comes from Brisbane, Australia where a simple vigil outside a hospital turned into a national flashpoint that overturned a decade of political consensus on Australia’s refugee policy. Remarkably, when they began the organisers of the vigil didn’t know what they were even aiming to achieve.

Placing yourself in harm’s way is powerful but scary. Often it is fueled by the white-hot anger of knowing that you’re on the side of justice, and yet failing to make the change you need. This is a two part about times when direct action was used to confront an overwhelming force. Part one looks at the remarkable #FeesMustFall student movement in South Africa, that all started when someone threw p...

Sometimes it’s a strength to not know too much about how something is usually done. In both of today’s stories, we see women who had very little experience, entering male-dominated spaces and smashing it. By disrupting the business-as-usual approach, their innovations have had lasting impact. The first story is about mothers who are standing up to the gun lobby in the USA, and the second is about...

When the largest rally in human history in 2003 didn’t stop the Iraq War it makes you wonder what does it take for a coalition to win? In the second episode of ChangeMakers podcast we look at Brexit and examine how the types of coalitions used by each side influenced the outcome of the referendum. Then we go to the Northern Rivers in regional Australia look at how a different kind of alliance agai...

You might think it’d be easier to ask for something achievable in a campaign, rather than demand the impossible. But sometimes the opposite is true. In the first episode of ChangeMakers podcast, we look at the famous Fight for 15 campaign in the United States, which is radically changing the way low-wage workers fight for better conditions. Then we look at the roots of the radical politics that is...