Following the 2021 coup by the Burmese military, the Burmese community have built an extraordinary civil disobedience movement to call for the return of democracy. Today we speak to Myint Cho a long time Burmese pro-democracy activist, active in the student movement in 1988, and then based at the Thai-Burma border for 12 years. He shares the long history of the struggle and explains what is happening today.

Myint Cho - Changemaker chats

Do you need a charismatic leader to make change in the world? Arnie Graf’s life’s work shows the answer is ‘no.’ He’s spent 45 years working with people like you and me to build movements that collectively lead change. This episode talks about how he got there and what he learnt. He shares how he was trained by Saul Alinsky the grandfather of community organising, and he reflects on his book Lessons Learned.

Arnie Graf - Community Organiser- Changemaker Chats

Tyson Yunkaporta belongs to Apalech clan of North Queensland. He wrote Sandtalk and is an iconoclast - helping us to see things differently in a modern world of crisis and chaos. Join us on a chat that explores a different understanding of power, change and being.

Tyson Yunkaporta - ChangeMaker Chats

Scale is a buzzword in social change circles, but what does it actually mean to scale social change? Community organiser and Deputy Director of Citizens UK Jonathan Cox unpacks the idea of scale. We discuss the importance of one to one relationships, organisation and networks as resources that help social change ideas move from the small to the big and from place to place.

Jonathan Cox - Scale & Organising - ChangeMaker Chat

We talk to one of the biggest names in US community organising, Ernie Cortes. We chat about the history of organising, exploring how it has changed and how it has created a powerful network of organisers that spans the globe. Ernie reflects on the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) under Saul Alinksy, his work building the IAF after Alinsky’s death, and some of the practices the IAF uses to develop powerful organisers.

Across the conversation Ernie mentions dozens of important references and readings that will be food for any existing and want-to-be change maker. We have put that list on our website too, for those who weren’t quick enough to grab a pen - https://changemakerspodcast.org/ernie-cortes-changemaker-chat/.

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

Ernie Cortes - ChangeMaker Chat

Jane McAlevey is a fierce advocate for winning social change through organising. Her organising method, grounded in decades of experience, mentorship and the battles of many movements across US history, is that workers and people need to lead their own change. She specialises in teaching how you can support people to do this. 

For unionists, her work is well known - and this episode is a joyous journey into how she came to this approach, and how that approach works. For others in the climate movement or racial justice movements - this is a useful introduction to what Jane means by organising, how it is different to mobilising and some of its crucial features. 

If you are interested in Jane’s work, she has published three books and a free online book of case studies that can all be downloaded here - https://janemcalevey.com/. You can find Jane on Twitter at @rsgexp. 

She also runs a global training program called Workers Rising - the most recent session is described here and future sessions will be advertised on Jane’s website (you can sign up for updates). 

For more on ChangeMakers - check us out at https://changemakerspodcast.org/, or Twitter at @changemakers99 or @amandatatts.

Jane McAlevey - ChangeMaker Chat

Could there be a single lever in the global marketplace that could transform the stakes for climate change? Yes - the insurance industry. Over the past 5 years insurance has been turned upside down by a nimble network of climate campaigners that have set new rules to end insurance for fossil fuel projects. This is the story of the Sunrise Project, the Insure our Future coalition, and the global and Australian distributed networks that have turned the world of insurance around.

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

The Best Climate Campaign You Have Never Heard Of

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 life of organising. Our host Amanda Tattersall reads a memoir that she wrote for the Griffith Review in their August edition entitled Hey Utopia.

You can find the Griffith Review here: https://www.griffithreview.com/editions/hey-utopia/. 

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:
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Scaling Change - Amanda Tattersall on making change big and small

The war on drugs has been a failed battle for decades. But what could we be doing differently? And what is a church doing running a facility where illegal drugs can be used openly? And why?

For more on the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre go here.
For more on the Fair Treatment campaign go here.

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

Addiction, drugs and the quest for Fair Treatment

Nick Haines - ChangeMaker Chats - Independents and Elections

The 2022 Australian Election is all about the Independent ‘Teal’ Candidates - but where did this Independent movement come from? Today we talk with Nick Haines, Voices for Indi activist, and son of Helen Haines, Member for Indi, about how it all began. He shares his family’s story and how he helped support Cathy McGowan, the first of the Independent Candidates, to win the seat of Indi from Sophie Mirabella back in 2013. This is a conversation about how community organising has helped community leaders create a different kind of political representation all across Australia.

Nick has been part of a team of authors writing a book about this movement called - “The People are Interested in Politics” Use the discount code ‘ChangeMakers’ to order an advance copy here: https://lanewaypress.com.au/product/the-people-are-interested-in-politics/

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

Nick Haines - ChangeMaker Chats - Independents and Elections

Could there be a single lever in the global marketplace that could transform the stakes for climate change? Yes - the insurance industry. Over the past 5 years insurance has been turned upside down by a nimble network of climate campaigners that have set new rules to end insurance for fossil fuel projects. We are re-releasing this 2021 story of the Sunrise Project, the Insure our Future coalition, and the global and Australian distributed networks that have turned the world of insurance around.
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

The Biggest Climate Campaign You Have Never Heard Of

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:
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On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

Terri Janke - ChangeMaker Chat - True Tracks

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:
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On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

Aminata Conteh-Biger - ChangeMaker Chat - Racism and change making

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:
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On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

Jackie Turner - ChangeMaker Chat - Trans Movement

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:
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On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

Jon Alexander - ChangeMaker Chat - Citizen Story

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

Karen Iles - ChangeMaker Chat - Police & Sexual Assault

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:
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On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

Amanda McKenzie - ChangeMaker Chat - Climate Communicator

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

Claire ORouke - ChangeMaker Chat - Climate Action

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

Grace Tame - ChangeMaker Chat - the challenges of making change

Few people have been as effective at agitating for a stronger climate and environment movement as Bill McKibben. He has consistently pushed new strategies and thinking in the battle to save our natural environment and our climate.

In celebration of his agitator spirit, we are re-sharing this #InCaseYouMissedIt episode with Bill McKibben recorded in June 2022. In this chat Bill shares how he found change making through a love of the natural environment and writing - and the lessons he has taken from the kind of movements he has helped bring to life, like 350.org and Third Act.

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

Bill McKibben - ChangeMaker Chat - Climate Agitator #ICYMI

Australia is in the middle of a national conversation that could transform our relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But how much do you know about the long story that sits behind the Voice to Parliament referendum? 

Thomas Mayo is a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander man, born on Larrakia country in Darwin. He shares with us his journey into union activism and Indigenous struggle. This chat explores what it was like to be part of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the community movement following it. He talks about the power and importance of the Federal Labor Government’s commitment to a national referendum to change the Australian Constitution and create a Voice to Parliament in late 2023.

Thomas has written five books, and you can find out about them here. His latest book released in May 2023 with Kerry O’Brien called “The Voice to Parliament Handbook” is available via all major book distributors (see here). Thomas is on tour talking about the book and the dates and tickets can be found here.

There are lots of organisations campaigning for a yes vote, including:
https://yes23.com.au/ (space to volunteer)
https://togetheryes.com.au/ (supporting kitchen table conversations)
https://ulurustatement.org/training/#/ - a learning platform about the voice and the Uluru Statement from the Heart

The Voice is a produce of a powerful collaborative process led by and for Indigenous Australians that culminated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

You can find out more about ChangeMakers:
Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/
On Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

Thomas Mayo - ChangeMaker Chat - Voice To Parliament

In the 2022 Australian Federal Election the Greens won an unprecedented number of seats in Queensland - producing what came to be known as the “Green Wave.” Max Chandler-Mather
 was at the centre of that movement - and is now the current Member for Griffith. In this conversation he shares how the Queensland Greens translated community organising techniques into an electoral force.

He shares his unusal story into the Greens, as someone who was frustrated and disenchanted by traditional electoral politics. But gentrification and the Brisbane floods
 changed his perspective, and he was encouraged to try and use lessons from political parties like Podemos and social movements around the world in the electoral arena.

Max goes into detail about how the Greens successfully organised, using door knocking, training programs and issue education sessions to create a space for political education
 and movement building. He talks openly about the challenges of electoral politics, and how important it is for candidates and parties to be held accountable to the people that elected them.

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

Max Chandler-Mather - ChangeMaker Chat - Organising in Elections

It’s been one year since the Australian Federal Election that swooped an unprecedented number of community independents into the House of Representatives, and it’s been 10 years since that “Voices for” movement started. In celebration of Voices for Indi, we are sharing this Chat with Nick Haines - in case you missed it (ICYMI). Nick worked on Cathy McGowan’s campaign and his mum Helen Haines is the current member for Indi.

In this conversation he shares the long story of how community independents used community organising techniques like kitchen table conversations to build an independent electoral base in Australia. 

The Voices for Indi group has just released a new book called The Indi Way - and you can find out more about it here - https://voicesforindi.com/.

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

Nick Haines - ChangeMaker Chat - Voices for Indi #ICYMI

Making change is be invaluable, but without resources it is hard to do. This episode digs into the question of how to raise money to make changemaking happen. We talk with Martha McKenzie the Executive Director of the Civic Power Fund in the United Kingdom. The Civic Power Fund is dedicated to raising resources for community organising - providing seed grants and creating understanding amongst philanthropists of the particular power that organising can create. This Chat digs into how they have done this and some of the obstacles they have encountered. It is a tour de force about all things organising, and it demonstrates the power of using the principles of organising to ‘disorganise and reorganise’ philanthropy.

In the Chat Martha mentions a few ideas which you can find out more about here:
Jane McAlevey - there is a ChangeMaker Chat with Jane that you can find here.
Scale - the article that our host Amanda Tattersall wrote is here

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

Martha MacKenzie - ChangeMaker Chat - Organising Money for ChangeMaking

If you are in Australia you might have heard of GetUp, or if you are in the United States you probably know about MoveOn - but you might not be aware that these kinds of digital advocacy movements operate in 20 countries around the world. These groups are linked through a global network called OPEN (Online Progressive Engagement Network) and today we talk with Nina Hall who has written the book about how the network works! 

We explore what makes these organisations similar and how their work differs across the world. We talk about a big debate inside the network - about having their campaigns between being led by member preferences and being stewarded by staff. This is a chat we at ChangeMakers particularly enjoyed as our host, Amanda Tattersall helped found GetUp in Australia. 

If you have been getting emails from one of these organisations - come and have a listen to how they work! 

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.

Nina Hall - ChangeMaker Chat - Digital Advocacy

We are all different - but some of these differences are hard to see. That includes differences based on our neurodiversity or our mental health. This conversation is with Jacinta Dietrich the co-host of the Differently Brained podcast. She is autistic and has lived with the challenges of mental health. She co-created a podcast to make a space for people to share how they live differently.

Jacinta shares openly about her neurodivergence and the community she has created. We also have a lovely chat about changemaking - and the power that  “small” change, like one to one conversations can bring to changing the world.

You can find out more about the Differently Brained podcast here: https://differentlybrainedpodcast.podbean.com/, where there are links to episodes. The podcast can be found on all the podcast apps.

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

Jacinta Dietrich - ChangeMaker Chat - Differently brained

What would it take for communities reliant on fossil fuels to be leaders in the climate transition? In this chat Elise Ganley, the National Lead Organiser for the Real Deal for Australia project explores how communities like Gladstone and Geelong are leading the way in designing policies that create an economic transition in ways that are shaped by their interests. Elise lives in Gladstone and grew up in regional South Australia, she tells the story of how these communities have used community organising and worked with the Sydney Policy Lab at the University of Sydney to create a community-led transition from the ground up.

For more on the Real Deal see here: https://www.sydney.edu.au/sydney-policy-lab/our-research/real-deal.html.

Host Amanda Tattersall is involved in this project and has written about it, including a discussion of the work in Gladstone and in Geelong.

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

Elise Ganley - ChangeMaker Chat - Climate Transition

You might think it’d be easier to ask for something achievable in a campaign, rather than demand the impossible. But sometimes the opposite is true. In the first episode of ChangeMakers podcast, we look at the famous Fight for 15 campaign in the United States, which is radically changing the way low-wage workers fight for better conditions. Then we look at the roots of the radical politics that is sweeping Barcelona - and examine their attempts to “empower the street”.

Series 1 Ep 01  - Making the Impossible Possible

This is the homework for attendees of the ChangeMakers MasterClass on Electoral Power.

Electoral Power MasterClass Homework

This is the long story behind one of the United Kingdom’s most high profile left wing figures. In this Chat we learn about Owen Jones’s journey into political life, how extra-parliamentary activism shaped him, but also why the British Labour Party matters.

Owen Jones - ChangeMaker Chat

The Movement for Black Lives is realigning political life in the US in 2020. Maurice Mitchell has been a leader in this movement since Ferguson. This conversation moves from his own traumatic experiences of racism that shaped his early life, to his work as an organiser and his reflections on the kinds of political strategy required to win justice. We zero in on the protests that exploded following the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and unpack the lesser known but vital strategies that have underpinned their success.

Maurice Mitchell ChangeMaker Chat

ChangeMakers Podcast tells stories of people trying the change the world. Host Amanda Tattersall travels the globe, talking to the people involved in extraordinary campaigns, finding out what works - and what doesn’t. Hopes, fears and regrets are revealed. Story by story, the lessons of how to change the world are teased out. Series One in 2017 featured ten episodes, and Series 2 released in 2018 covers campaigns from the democracy movement in Hong Kong to the Marriage Equality movement in Australia, to the anti-Trump movement in the USA. 

ChangeMakers shows change is possible.

ChangeMakers Podcast

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