Community Organisers in Conversation | Podcast Guru

Overview

Episodes

Details

A Seeds for Change podcast, in conversation with community organisers. From stopping immigration raids on their streets to building renters unions, people are organising in their communities to take collective action against poverty, policing and the hostile environment. As well as fighting to improve the conditions of our lives now, these are struggles for a different future - for economic justice, decolonisation and abolition. In this podcast we explore the theory and practice of community organising, and its role in bringing about political transformation. In each episode we bring people together to discuss a different question about how we fight to change the systems we live in. Music: Aum by K. Monday. Transcripts: Available at seedsforchange.org.uk/podcast

Recent Episodes

Love against the state part 2: Community and fascism

MAR 4, 2026

Love against the state part 2: Community and fascism

This 2-part conversation focuses on love as a political force, with Balraj and Nuradin from Kids of Colour, an anti-racist youth organisation in Greater Manchester. In this episode we talk more about the role of art and culture, the crisis of growing fascism, and the importance of spaces for conversation, care and grief. We reflect on the years of work that has built community relationships against state violence in Manchester, and how this commitment to love can inform struggles for all our liberation.

29 MIN

Love against the state part 1: Young people

MAR 3, 2026

Love against the state part 1: Young people

This 2-part conversation focuses on love as a political force, with Balraj and Nuradin from Kids of Colour, an anti-racist youth organisation in Greater Manchester. In this episode they introduce the Boys and Love project, where they run sessions with boys of colour exploring themes of love, solidarity, masculinity, feminism and community. We talk about the oppressive environment of schools and the policing of racialised young people, and how to disturb those hierarchies and build solidarity. We discuss how dialogue sustains and transforms our communities, and think about love as a humanising force against state violence and punishment.

39 MIN

Political education part 2: The first bullet

JUN 26, 2025

Political education part 2: The first bullet

This 2-part conversation brings together two organisers in Brighton to discuss political education: Jo Taylor from the Solidarity Economy Association and Amy McGourty, a trade unionist and Irish language organiser. In this episode, we discuss the Kurdish context, including the huge role of political education in the trajectory of the Rojava revolution. We think about the idea of collective self-knowing, and how this differs from the individual identity we are taught to hold. We discuss the rise of far right ideology, and the ways political education can help us understand together the histories we have been cut from. We talk about commitment, comrades, and the need to take time to develop an analysis together, from which we can act.

36 MIN

Political education part 1: Who are we actually?

JUN 26, 2025

Political education part 1: Who are we actually?

In this 2-part conversation we meet two organisers in Brighton to discuss political education: Jo Taylor from the Solidarity Economy Association and Amy McGourty, a trade unionist and Irish language organiser. In this episode we talk about what we mean by political education, the forms it can take, and the role it has played in movements around the world. We discuss the relationship of language to collective self-being, and the idea that by developing political consciousness we become ‘more fully human’. We discuss examples and challenges of political education in Britain: why it seems hard to prioritise in our movements, the need to bring theory and practice together, and what we can learn from anti-colonial struggles about our own place in the world system.

50 MIN

Staying alive: Self-organising for survival

NOV 20, 2024

Staying alive: Self-organising for survival

How does a community organise itself to survive in the face of state violence and neglect? In this episode we discuss how asylum seekers and refugees are directly creating the things they need to survive. We talk about how mutual aid builds political power, the significance of self-organisation, and how those most affected by oppression come to lead their own struggles. We discuss the role of art and culture in survival and resistance, the tension between reform and abolition, and what it means to fight through everyday survival for a world without borders. With Loraine Mponela from Coventry Asylum and Refugee Action Group, Mariam Yusuf from Women Asylum Seekers Together, and Olivia Namutebi from Women for Refugee Women.

39 MIN