What am I doing towards building a peaceful, sustainable and fairer world?
Currently, my political activity is focused on voluntary work for the committee at Chestnuts Farm Allotments . In that capacity, I have taken on the challenge of supporting a diverse group of people with different ideas about growing fruit, vegetables and flowers to share the work, the space and resources that we have the good fortune to enjoy.
My Community & Youth Work training in the early 1970s was a course of experiential learning in the democratic pursuit of social justice and political change. The focus of my subsequent academic and professional life in Adult and Communnity Education has been on Language, Power and Participation. This includes an interest in gender, which was the focus of my doctoral thesis, underpins my attempt to rethink the concept of internalised oppression and informs my concern about the divisions arising from some of the polarised arguments about feminism and 'trans' politics.
I have been an intermittent member of the Labour Party all my life, re-joining to elect Jeremy Corbyn as leader, and leaving again when the right wing succeeded in their campaign to replace him and to abandon the policies that might have had a real impact on the lives of "the many, not the few". Meanwhile, I was a member of a group Trying to understand banks and money and considering what can and should be done.