ChangeMakers

Australian of the Year Grace Tame talks with us about her journey into change making and the challenges she has encountered. She talks about the power of even small action, and the impact that petitions had in the #LetHerSpeak movement. She talks about how the pathway to making change can be uneven, made difficult by the experience of trauma. It is a wide ranging conversation where, with a full heart, Grace shares some of the qualities that have made her a fierce advocate for change. 

Grace’s book “Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner: a memoir” is available here. 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out: 
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On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts 

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Today we talk with Claire O’Rouke - a former journalist, climate campaigner and author of Together We Can - about the diverse and creative grassroots movement of people around Australia taking action to respond to the threat of climate change. 

Together We Can canvassed over 70 stories of Australians who have developed novel community based responses to help our climate, defying the logic that you need to be a scientist or a politician to make a difference. We unpack how people have sought to overcome challenges like climate distress and what Claire has learnt about what goes into the most successful forms of change. 

For more information about Together We Can visit: https://claireorourke.com/new-book-together-we-can/ 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out: 
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org 
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/ 
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts 

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So what do former Fire Chief Greg Mullins and Australian Cricket Captain Pat Cummins have in common? They both want action on climate change and they have both worked with Amanda McKenzie, CEO of Australia’s Climate Council, to build their strategy. Amanda is a climate communicator who has worked to catalyse different communities of people affected by climate change so they can become powerful climate advocates. She talks with us about her approach to climate communications and how long term engaged work with a variety of affected communities has changed the public debate on climate in Australia. 

You can find out more about the climate council here - https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/ 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out: 
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org 
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/ 
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts 

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Karen Iles is long time social changemaker, lawyer and victim survivor of aggravated sexual assault when she was a child. As a young adult she went to the police to lodge a statement so they would investigate the crime, only to be stymied at every turn. After almost 20 years of police inaction, she has launched a campaign to create a duty for police to investigate allegations of serious crimes like child sexual assault. Today she shares her journey and the campaign she has launched. We discuss the power of personal experience in shaping political advocacy and her hopes for changing the legal system. 

For more on Karen’s campaign: 
Take action to support the campaign at MakePoliceInvetigate.org 
Watch Karen on The Project 
Read Karen’s story in the Guardian and in News.com.au 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out: 
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org 
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/ 
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts 

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Modern society tells subtle but powerful stories that shape how we think about how we should live together, make decisions together and what we should value. Jon Alexander has identified three of these stories - the subject story of the tyrant strong man, the consumer story of the modern market and the citizen story, as alternative ways we can be. In this chat we identify how these stories impact how we make change. We look at how the dominant consumer story infects many change making strategies, and some of the ways in which groups have sought to challenge consumer logic with citizen practice. 

For more you can find out more about Jon’s book Citizens here. 

You can find out more about the New Citizenship Project here. 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out: 
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org 
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/ 
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There is a powerful movement led for and by the trans and gender diverse community building in Australia - and today’s ChangeMaker Chat is with one of its founders. Jackie Turner is a trans woman and a long time social justice and climate organiser. This chat explores how organising in her community has given her a new lens on how and why we make change. She outlines the threats to the trans communities in the UK and USA, and what that means for trans people everywhere. She provides plenty of advice for cis allies about what can be done to support the trans community. 

You can provide financial support for Jackie’s Trans Justice Project here. 

You can follow Jackie on Insta www.instagram.com/jackiemaeturner/ or on Twitter @jackiemaeturner. All her writing can be found in her bio. 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out: 
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org 
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/ 
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts 

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Today’s podcast looks at racism in the not for profit world. Aminata Conteh-Bigher has an extraordinary story; having developed powerful leadership qualities in Sierra Leonne civil war forced her to flee her home. In Australia she founded the Aminata Maternal Foundation to change the dangerous conditions that women face when giving birth in Sierra Leonne. Today she shares how this journey has placed her at the centre of the not-for-profit world in Australia, and the struggles around racism that she has encountered on that journey. This is a powerful and provocative conversation for changemakers that calls for us to change how we make change, if we truly want to live the values that so many of us preach. 

For more on Aminata you can read her book Rising Heart, and you can find more about the Aminata Maternal Foundation here. 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out: 
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org 
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/ 
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts 

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One of the biggest hurdles to powerful climate action is changing our economy so it is no longer reliant on fossil fuels. Too often plans hatched by experts or environmentalists far removed from coal mining communities fail, because they are unable to bring affected communities and workers with them. 

This episode comes from Collie Western Australia and talks about how the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union worked with other unions, community groups and political leaders to plan for the closure of their coal mines and the creation of new industries and jobs for their town. In this episode Alex Cassie explains how she supported local workers to write this plan and turn it into state government action. The transition was years in the making and it is still ongoing, but in this story are lessons for every fossil fuel community. The story is also a powerful reminder for people worried about climate change that workers in fossil fuel industries can make powerful allies in the battle to end our reliance on coal. 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out: 
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org 
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/ 
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts 

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Terri Janke is an Aboriginal and Torrest Strait Islander Lawyer who uses the law to protect and advance Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property. As a Meriam and Wuthathi woman who grew up in Cairns in northern Queensland, for over 20 years she has crafted a set of legal instruments that allow for the protection of Indigenous Culture. From an Indigenous perspective, Culture is the embodiment of life, and it can be represented in anything from art to dance, from bones to research. She is well recognised across Australia for her work in protecting Indigenous Culture using a series of True Track protocols that enable Indigenous Culture to be recognised as intellectual property. 

Here she explains her journey and how she found the law. She explores her ICIP principles and then applies them to the process of research, and in particular Country-based ‘placed-based’ research. This is a powerful conversation for non-Indigenous listeners as Terri generously shares an Indigenous perspective on Culture that is very different to white understandings of culture. 

For more about Terri’s work you can visit her website - https://www.terrijanke.com.au/. Or read her book True Tracks, available from UNSW Press. 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out: 
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org 
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/ 
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts 

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In the US midterm elections, one of the extraordinary outcomes was how many young people turned their back on some of the more extreme candidates that denied the 2020 election result. Yet should it have been so surprising? Young people have been organising like their lives depended on it for a while - including through the March for Our Lives movement against gun violence. 

This episode is a re-release of the story of the March for Our Lives movement that arose out of the 2018 mass shooting at  Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.