Born out of a social media post, the Black Lives Matter movement has sparked discussion about race and inequality across the world. In this spirited conversation with Mia Birdsong, the movement’s three founders share what they’ve learned about leadership and what provides them with hope and inspiration in the face of painful realities. Their advice on how to participate in ensuring freedom for everybody: join something, start something and “sharpen each other, so that we all can rise.”
Formed in 1979, Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions (BUGA-UP) made its mark on hoardings around the nation. By revising advertising slogans and disrupting tobacco-sponsored events, the group revealed the true cost of tobacco and alcohol company deception.
Kevin Buzzacott is a key figure in the opposition to the South Australian Olympic Dam mine and the nuclear industry in general. In this interview he outlines a number of the creative actions he has taken part in as part of a series of campaigns addressing the issues of dispossession and Aboriginal sovereignty.
In late 2018 thousands of people from across Central America walked North to the border of the USA and into the political maelstrom of the midterm elections. How did they organise themselves and what did they achieve?
In Australia it’s hard for newly arrived refugees to find a new job. In 2011, Settlement Services International found a way for refugees to create businesses for themselves – by using the marketplace as a change maker.
Social media abuse tries to shut people down, and is frighteningly common for women and people of colour. This is the story of how Amnesty crowdsourced thousands of volunteers to patrol twitter and see if they could stop it.
The story of the Fight for 15 campaign in the US 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”.
The story of the Lady Cilento Hospital vigil which turned into a national flashpoint that overturned a decade of political consensus on Australia’s refugee policy. Remarkably, when they began the organisers of the vigil didn’t know what they were aiming to achieve.
From 1979 to the 1990s Australia, Canadian and American activists took part in a series of environmental blockades to defend old growth forests, rivers and other biodiverse places. Join Iain McIntyre for a series of conversations with the blockaders who took part in these campaigns.
This episode looks at how to organise genuine opposition in a place where the one thing they hate is genuine opposition. How a small protest against destruction of a local park turned into a mass movement that’s sweeping Russia.
What would you do if someone wanted to bulldoze an oil pipeline through your country, threatening not just your land, but your water and air? And what if the nation backing them had a history of playing dirty? That’s the situation the people in today’s episode found themselves in. The battle over building an oil pipeline in Standing Rock in South Dakota, USA.
What does it take to improve the lives of millions of people? The late Fred Hollows knew. He was known across the globe for his groundbreaking work in disrupting the global medical establishment, and his legacy lives on among the doctors he inspired. What does it take to achieve transformation at this kind of scale?
In 2016, GetUp, an organisation best known for its online petitions and email campaigns, decided to go offline. They came up a strategy to remove extreme conservative politicians from the Australian parliament. One of the places they went to was the seat of Bass in Northern Tasmania.
What can we learn when a Hollywood TV show gets into ChangeMaking? Comedy show Brooklyn 99 took on police racism. How did they do it in a way that people didn’t turn off?
In 2014 Hong Kong hundreds of thousands of citizens staged a mass street occupation demanding the vote. Why did it happen? And what led to tensions building inside the movement overtime?
This is the origin story of the largest anti-Trump organisation in America and how it built a mass based local movement to save affordable healthcare.
In Cape Town, apartheid pushed black residents to the edge of the city. Reclaim the city is a movement pushing back, desegregating the city through strategic long term occupations.
The road to marriage equality in Australia was filled with dirty tricks and homophobia. How did the LGBTI community build a movement strong enough to overcome it all?
What is a church doing running a facility where illegal drugs can be used openly? And why? An exploration of the medically supervised injecting centre based in Kings Cross in Sydney Australia and the community pressure which led to it opening.
How do we overcome chronic long term homelessness? Listen to this episode about a campaign which decided to set an absurdly ambitious goal to try and solve the homelessness problem.
