ChangeMakers

Can you make a difference by being funny? In this episode news satirist and stand up comedian Sami Shah takes us through the art of political satire and the journey that got him there. Sami grew up in Pakistan, studied in the United States and became a fully fledged journalist - and comedian in his home country before traveling to Australia. He moved to Australia in 2012 living in Western Australi...

In a world where everyone is worried about cost of living – what difference would it make to lift the wages of the lowest paid workers? Lyndy McIntyre has documented a campaign that did exactly that in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her book  Power to Win  documents that struggle and in this chat she explores some of the key strategies that made that campaign work. Power to Win  is available...

Welcome back to ChangeMakers Podcast for 2025! It certainly feels like this is a big year for thinking creatively and deeply about how to make the world better! Our first episode is a re-run of a chat with the brilliant and powerful Grace Tame. Grace took a powerful form of action at the Australian of the Year event a few weeks ago, wearing a provocative t-shirt that got the country (and world) ta...

The whole world has just witnessed President Trump getting re-elected, but what is the long story behind what happened. In this chat, our last for 2024, we talk to Nick Bryant, US foreign correspondent and author of several books that have sought to understand what is going on with politics in the US! In this conversation Nick shares a little about why he because a journalist focused on the US, th...

Dave Sweeney has spent much of his life campaigning against the use of nuclear materials. For his efforts working with a group of colleagues at ICAN - the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons - he won a Nobel Peace Price in 2017. This is a story of the work he has done. For those curious about the history and risks of nuclear and to better understand some of the debate that is going o...

In NSW Australia there is a Drug Summit underway. It is exploring better ways to respond to the experience and effects of substance use. This episode is a story about the Uniting Church who helped lead the establishment of the first Drug Summit two decades ago and is still leading the Fair Treatment campaign to fight for a better way for the community to respond to drug use. This episode is a Chan...

Its easy to think that the problems in our lives are all our fault. But some of the time - indeed much of the time - our problems also come from public life. That is Chrisann Jarrett's journey . When the UK's Home Office told her that she would not be treated as a UK citizen, even though she had lived there for most of her life - she felt like it was her problem. But as she talked with others she...

In this chat celebrated UK community leader Patrick Vernon shares a series of stories about how he has learnt to combined the strengths of putting pressure for change through grassroots activism, and negotiating for change through inside lobby and compromise. Patrick is known for his work in gaining recognition for Black migrants in the UK, particularly in campaigning for the recognition of Windru...

This episode is a tour de force in the art of change making and the Black history of housing activism in Cape Town. Nkosikhona Swaartbooi has been a leading activist in the Reclaim the City movement that has fought for working class housing in Cape Town's urban core. He is now featured in a documentary called Mother City (2024) that shows this remarkable urban struggle. In this episode he takes us...

Our governments play a role in providing care and support to families and kids - but we don't often think about how those services are provided and whether they actually deliver sufficient 'care.' In this conversations Jarrod Wheatley explores his experience in working in the out-of-home care space, and unpacks a distinct model of care that is based explicitly on relationships and connection. For...

In the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris's nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, we bring you a another story of hope - about US how the people responded to President Trump's election in 2016. Indivisible began as a google doc and turned into the largest anti-Trump movement in the US in support of affordable healthcare and democracy! In this episode we bring you that stor...

Moz Azimitabar is one of Australia’s most celebrated emerging artists, having been a finalist in the Archibald Prize twice. But Moz is not like other artists, he found his art not at art school but in the barbarism of Australia’s offshore detention regime in Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. Moz sought refuge in Australia because he was persecuted for fighting for human rights in Iran, and in seeki...

This week we get a little personal and our host shares some of her experiences about making change. How can we hold together big ambition for social change on issues like climate alongside the small work required to build powerful connections across our diversity and difference? This piece explores the tensions of scale between big and small, fast and slow through stories and reflections across a...

How do elections and new governments change how we make change? In the wake of the election of a new Labour Government in the UK, we talk with Matthew McGregor from 38 Degrees about what the new government might mean for progressive political strategy. We explore Matthew’s background and his time working with unions and the Obama campaign to learn more about 38 Degrees and its digital first strate...

There is a lot of talk about the need for diversity, but what does diversity actually mean?  In this conversation Rathana Chea shares how he has learnt how to value the power of difference and connection across his time in making social change, sharing insights from social movements while he was in school, to community organising, to working with Greenpeace International and now working to cr...

In this special UK national election episode we are joined by Marc Stears from UCL Policy Lab and Martha MacKenzie from Civic Power to talk about the 2025 national election from the perspective of participatory and everyday politics. Civic Power Fund and the UCL Policy Lab are sponsors of this podcast, and this episode was conducted in London in the middle of the election campaign. It explores the...

The UK’s Nana’s against Fracking are a grassroots movement that spread across regional UK communities to stop gas fracking. The movement was led by a legion of women who had never, or only at a distance, been involved in making change, but felt compelled to act when they found out about the catastrophic effects of fracking on the environment and community Tina and the Nanas were a magnificent exam...

How on earth can any of us challenge might of authoritarian government? Samuel Chu has been contesting government over-reach and human rights abuses in China, Russia, Belarus and more - and as a US citizen and community organiser has a refreshing take on how we can all contribute to a movement against authoritarianism. In this episode he explores how community organising has helped him think strat...

While we know that too many women live with the ever-present threat of violence our societies seem to struggle with what to do about it. While we have refuges services, and at times the issue is raised in national debate, we seem unable to address the problem at its core. In the UK, Love and Power is a new organisation that is seeking to end vioelcne aganst women by putting women who have expeiren...

If you are in Australia you probably know of Andrew Denton the comedian, but did you know he is also a highly successful changemaker?  In this chat Andrew shares his journey of a life that began in comedy, then ventured into long form interviews with the popular television show “Enough Rope”, then a decade ago took him to a decision to try and change the laws on Voluntary Assisted Dying. Andr...

Mona grew up as a child of refugees fleeing political persecution. Now as an adult in the UK, she has created a new kind of organisation - Revoke - to support people seeking refuge and asylum that builds on her own experience. In this episode of ChangeMakers she tells us about her journey, about the political activism of her parents in Iran, and their work in Denmark as part of a broader refugee c...

What are some of the skills or insights shared by some of America’s extraordinary change makers, people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Alicia Garza or Loretta Ross? In particular, what can these people teach us about how to build larger movements for change? Anand Giridhardhas, author of Persuaders , talks us through what he discovered when he interviewed these and other American change makers. In...

What would it mean if we had local authorities and councils that saw their mission as building relationships with the communities they serve? This week we talk with Nick Kimber, the Director of Strategy and Design at the London Borough of Camden. He has helped create a council that builds relationships with the community it serves in everything that it does, from child protection to garbage collec...

Today we talk with one of the world's leading communication specialists for progressive change. Anat Shenker-Osorio has spend decades working with communities, movements and progressive political candidates across the world helping them to sharpen and improve how they communicate their ideas. Anat brings a deep understanding of change making principles in her work - and today she unpacks where her...

If climate change affects everything - then what do we do to reimagine how we work, live and care for each other? This episode is with Dr Kim Loo - a leading Australian community climate activist and local Sydney-based General Practitioner, who has connected her role as a community doctor and her passion for the natural world to make sure she is building a healthy community for us all.   Here...