The Community Development Podcast (@CommDevtPodcast)

This episode draws its title from a chapter written by Kenya-based academics and CD practitioners Daniel Muia, Stellah Masese and Boniface Munene Rufo, in the 2025 book: 'Community-Based Inclusive Development: An Introduction' (eds. Joerg Weber and Shaun Grech) on Palgrave Using disability as a lens through which to explore community based inclusive development Daniel, Stellah and Boniface discuss...

The 2026 Modern Cockney Festival kicked off with this compelling discussion with Prof Joan C Williams, from the University of California and author of the books 'White Working Class' and 'Outclassed: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America'. With kind permission of Andy Green, co-founder of Modern Cockney Festival, the talk has been made available to the podcast. The rest of the Festival's progra...

This episode's guest is Ritva Vilppola. Originally from Aotearoa-New Zealand, Ritva now lives in The Netherlands, via Australia, and they discuss the intersection of architecture, design, and communities in different contexts: urban design, parks, resilience planning. To learn more about their practice you can email Ritva or contact them via LinkedIn: ritva.m.vilppola@gmail.com linkedin.com/in/rit...

Stan Reeves joins the podcast in this episode to look back at the Adult Learning project that ran for a number of years from 1979 in Gorgie-Dalry in west Edinburgh. It very explicitly drew on the teachings and ideas of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1921-1997). In 1989 a book was written about the ALP and subsequently re-published several times. It can be accessed here: https://link.springer...

Later this week the National Centre for Co-ordinating Public Engagement (NCCPE) will release the first episodes in a brand new podcast series that Russell has produced all about the CAER Heritage project in Ely and Caerau in Cardiff, Wales. This is a short excerpt from episode 5 in which Dr Dave Wyatt, one of CAER's founders, gives a flavour of what the series covers. _____________________________...

For episode 50 Russell heads to Cardiff's Grangetown district in the south of the city to chat with two of the founders of Grange Pavilion's Youth Forum (GPYF) - Nirushan Sudarsan and Shoruk Nekeb. They tell the story of GPYF's origins as a project within the wider Community Gateway project in Grangetown, a long-term community-university civic mission project. They also give a flavour of some of i...

For this episode the podcast returns to Ireland and specifically the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland at Derry where Caitriona Mullan is based, and which has featured in the academic work of Dr Giada Lagana. Caitriona is a Derry native and has specialised in cross-border collaboration and policy across Europe in her career in European Union (EU) Affairs, Regional Develop...

A quick introduction to a short podcast series all about the CAER Heritage project in Cardiff, civic mission and how universities and communities can work together. Subscribe to https://soundcloud.com/nccpe-bristol where the series will be hosted by the National Centre for Co-ordinating Public Engagement (NCCPE). ________________________________ Produced by Russell Todd (russell@russelltodd.cymru)...

In this episode Russell is joined by Hannah Kitchen Kirby and Clare MacGillivray to discuss human rights and to provide a helpful insight into a right-based approach in practice. Between them they provide the lead pair of articles in IACD's March 2025 edition of Practice Insights which is dedicated to the theme of rights: https://www.iacdglobal.org/practice_insights Hannah was until very recently...

In this episode, Russell drops by Cardiff University for a chat with Dr Dave Wyatt, Reader in Civic Mission and Community Action in the university's School of History, Archaeology and Religion. Dave co-founded CAER Heritage with archaeologist Olly Davis and community development professional Dave Horton. The team have been co-producing heritage projects in the Ely and Caerau districts of west Card...

For a second successive episode the podcast visits Scotland, with Russell chatting with Naomi Ross and Nikki Thomas of Fallin Community Voice, a community organisation based in the former coalmining village of Fallin near Stirling. Centred around a community garden project, Naomi and Nikki explain how Fallin Community Voice are facilitating discussions about community responses to the climate cris...

In episode 44, Russell chats to Katharine Wheeler, Development Director of The Stove Network in Dumfries, Scotland and lead for the creative placemaking network, What We Do Now. She talks about The Stove's approach to placing artistic and creative practice at the heart of building communities and designing places; the Scottish policy framework and context in which this takes place; and how arts pr...

In this episode Russell is joined by the guest who appeared on the very first episode of this podcast, Alan Twelvetrees, to shamelessly plug the brand new book they have co-written on Policy Press: The sixth edition of 'Community Development, Social Action and Social Planning: A Practical Guide' Alan helmed the first five editions that increasingly came to feature contributions from a range of CD...

In this episode Paul Lachapelle and Charlie McConnell continue talking us through what they call 'The Seven Deadly Sins of Community Development'. Paul, from Montana State University, and Charlie are both former Presidents of the International Association for Community Development and co-wrote a recent paper on the Seven Deadly Sins published in issue 3 of the Journal of the Community Development...

In this episode, the first of a two-parter, Paul Lachapelle, from Montana State University, and Charlie McConnell - both former Presidents of the International Association for Community Development - discuss their recent paper 'The Seven Deadly Sins of Community Development' published in issue 3 of the Journal of the Community Development Society: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15575...

In this episode, recorded in February 2024, Russell is joined from County Meath in the Republic of Ireland, by Dónal Traynor, Chief Executive of Community Finance Ireland (CFI); and from Omagh in Northern Ireland, by Conor McGale from Rose Regeneration Trust. Rose Regeneration Trust has recently supported Community Finance Ireland assess the social value of its investment portfolio across the whol...

In this episode, Becky Harford - co-founder of Benthyg Cymru (benthyg is the Welsh word for 'to borrow') - returns five years after her first appearance on the podcast way back in 2018 when we were first introduced to the concept of a Library of Things (LoT) in Cardiff. Since then Benthyg has grown from a single LoT in Cardiff, to a network of over 20 all across Wales. The LoT concept is not confi...

This episode is a bit of a departure in that it is an edited version of an interview Jan Huyton and I did with Radio Cardiff at the end of May about the fortnightly Philosophy in Pubs group we host in Cardiff. Philosophy in Pubs is a grassroots network across the UK that promotes the merits of philosophical discussion in public spaces (not necessarily in pubs). In the interview we talk through how...

In this episode Russell chat's with Puru Miah about the community and trade union organising that undertakes in East London. Puru is also one of the founders of People's PPE - Philosophy, Politics and Economics - a programme, started in early 2016, of independent community education delivered through debates and seminars. Puru discusses some of the similarities and differences to organising in a w...

In this episode - recorded summer 2022 - Jess Gitsham, Communications Manager at Bristol Energy Cooperative in England, tells us about her work; why a co-operative approach is important; the community energy movement and how it in builds solidarities across different sectors to advance the movement. Follow Bristol Energy Cooperative on: youtube.com/channel/UCojVboGhwWw4FZSnOY8wvwQ/featured twitter...

Here's an oral essay I recorded in 2021 during the pandemic for The Co-operative College's Re-cast zine Inspired by the fiction and non-fiction of Raymond Williams it reflects on podcasts as deliberative community media and a form of open pedagogy. To learn more about Raymond Williams visit: Raymond Williams Society: raymondwilliams.co.uk/ Raymond Williams Foundation: raymondwilliamsfoundation.org...

In this episode Ken Moon explains his motives behind setting up a community land bank serving Pontypridd and its environs: Tir Pontypridd. He also explains why the ownership and control of land is such a central issue of social justice and locates the concept of a land bank in the wider context of the climate emergency we are facing. You can sign up for either a £3, £5 or £10 a month tiers at Tir...

Grief Space in Cardiff is a project run by ACE - Action in Caerau and Ely - in Cardiff, in partnership with the cancer charity Macmillan, as part of its Compassionate Communities programme. In this episode, project lead Kimberley Jones explains how community development underpins the project's approach to engaging local people; develops collective responses to supporting people experiencing grief;...

Professor of Social Work at the University of York Martin Webber joins this episode to discuss his research into social prescribing and the particular model called Community Enhanced Social Prescribing which seeks to achieve not only health outcomes for individuals in receipt of social prescribing activities; but which also contributes to the community/-ies in which social prescribing activities o...

In this episode, Russell is joined by Anna Clarke (twitter.com/annaiclarke) who is European Trustee and Chair of the International Association of Community Development (IACD) to discuss its mission, work and networks. In particular, recorded while the COP26 climate emergency summit was being held in Glasgow, Anna discusses how the IACD is addressing climate change as an issue of social justice. Yo...