Welcome to the Change Maker Programme
The Change Maker programme is a team project about making change in our community - to free women and girls from violence and abuse. It ran from April -October 2024. It came out of the Communities Rising initiative that RISE has developed. All the members of the team are survivors of abuse.
“We use our heads, hearts and hands to think, feel and do what we believe in. ” (RISE Change Makers)
We are the Change Makers
Our team models Asset Based Development: bringing different gifts and strengths to make a combined effort.We met weekly and workshop ideas. We reach decisions through consensus. We are singers, poets, writers, gardeners, artists, actors and much more!
How We Work Together (to develop the campaign)
We co-creatively applied the problem tree exercise to narrow down issues we each felt strongly about.
Some of the key issues and insights we brought to the table:
– Teaching, autonomy, feminising our city , telling our own stories, accessing nature, claiming space for girls from violence and abuse. It came out of the Communities Rising initiative that RISE has developed. All the members of the team are survivors.
To narrow it down to a single concept we looked for commonality and mapped out the major issues, arriving at one central idea for our campaign.
Our campaign aims to raise awareness and combat harassment and abuse that occurs in and around our city bus stops , focusing on the bus stop as a symbol of women’s agency, whilst targeting issues of safety from violence, intimidation, and abuse #StopabusE.
All About Our Campaign
We looked at the key questions we would have to answer to progress with our idea. We had to think about what message we wanted to put across.
Creating Departments and Roles
As a team we divided up different areas of the campaigns and the things that we wanted to achieve, working to our different strengths and the additional skills that we would like to develop. RISE provided media training to give us all practice in talking to the press and understanding how we could communicate our key message.
The Bus Stop
We have created a craftivist installation of the bus stop as an impactful engagement space to help soften and reframe the urban disconnect.
Communities Rising Event
On the 10th July 2024 the Change Maker team took their campaign to the Communities Rising Celebration. Two members of the team facilitated creative workshops including art to build into the Bus Stop. We had a poster display and Power Point presentation. Three members of the team spoke, sang and shared poetry with a wider audience.
Where we go from here:
There is so much more to do! If we were given the opportunity to revisit and develop our campaign in the future we would like to:
The Survey
We have created a survey to generate further evidence about the experiences of women and girls in Brighton and Hove, related to feeling safe and free to move about and do the things that matter to them in the city.
