ChangeMakers

For our last episode of 2025, we listen back to one of the leading communications specialists in US politics - Anat Shenker-Osorio. Lucky for listeners in Sydney, Anat is visiting Australia in December and you can get tickets to see her speak hosted by Australian Progress on December 11 at the University of Sydney. More details here: https://www.australianprogress.org.au/events/anat-in-conversation-sydneyThis episode was recorded back in 2024, before the 2024 US Presidential Election - and includes Anat sharing stories from her own podcast Words to Win By. Details below. And - we will be back in 2026 with our 10th Season at the beginning of February!! See you then.---------We talk with one of the world’s leading communication specialists for progressive change. Anat Shenker-Osorio has spend decades working with communities, movements and progressive political candidates across the world helping them to sharpen and improve how they communicate their ideas. Anat brings a deep understanding of change making principles in her work – and today she unpacks where her communications methodology came from and some of its key principles.This Chat is full of change making stories, many of which are drawn from her fantastic podcast Words to Win By.You can find out more about Anat’s work and method by:Listening to her podcast Words to Win By – which is now releasing its third season!Reading her book – Don’t Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense about the EconomyFor more on ChangeMakers check us out:Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org (where you can also sign up to our email list!)On Facebook, Instagram, Threads - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.socialOn X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatattsOn LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall

When Zohran Mamdani voted in the New York Mayoral election last week he told the press that he followed the Working Families Party ticket. Who is the Working FamiliesParty? This episode is one we recorded earlier with the national leader of the Working Families Party - Maurice Mitchell. This episode was recorded in the wake of the Movement for Black Lives protests, but he also explains the origins of Working Families and their urban origins in community organising movements like ACORN in the US.There is a long story behind one of the many strands emerging in resistance politics in the US.For more on ChangeMakers check us out:Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org (where you can also sign up to our email list!)On Facebook, Instagram, Threads - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.socialOn X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatattsOn LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall

We have a chat with Radio Nation's Saturday Extra Host Nick Bryant about all things America - and the long story behind the intractable conflicts in the US. This episode was recorded in December 2024 - after President Trump's election but before he took office so it doesn't focus on what has happened in 2025. Instead it casts a long history that sheds light on the fissures and conflicts, the trend towards authoritarianism and the racism that is not new in American politics.It is also a lovely background to the indefatigable host of Australia's number one (or at least our number one) current affairs radio show!For more on ChangeMakers check us out:Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org (where you can also sign up to our email list!)On Facebook, Instagram, Threads - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.socialOn X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatattsOn LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall

In Australia, since 2012 there has been an explosive growth in community independents who have been challenging the two-party system and bringing new voices in the parliament. But there is a much bigger story than just the arrival of many new faces in parliament. Behind the new elected representatives is a massive movement of people - the "Voices of" movement - that started in Indi and has spread out across the country. That national movement is called Voices for Australia.Denis was a founding member of the Indi movement and has played a leadership role in supporting and sharing these ideas nationally. In this chat we find out about his long history in rural community activism and then we unpack some of the features of the Voices of movement that has led to its success so far ....You can also read more about Voices for Indi in their book available here:https://scribepublications.com.au/books/the-indi-wayOr read this shorter piece in Arena by Denis and Lesley Howard about the Community Independents movement:https://arena.org.au/a-positive-politics-community-independents-and-the-new-wave-of-political-engagement/For more on ChangeMakers check us out:Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org (where you can also sign up to our email list!)On Facebook, Instagram, Threads - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.socialOn X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatattsOn LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall

When millions of fish died overnight in Menindee in western NSW, the community came together to mourn, interpret and respond to what had happened through a series of powerful arts events. What happened was supported by the use of a socially-engaged arts practice that brought people together across difference to create a space where communities could lead a response.This chat is with Vic McEwan, an internationally recognised artist and researcher, founder of the Cad Factory and now resident of Narrandera in Western NSW. He has led a well recognised program of amazing art produced with communities. In this episode he shares some of his journey into this work from the nightlife of Marrickville and working on the 000 hotline, and tells us about some of the emerging principles and practices he has learnt from his practice.Vic is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sydney. You can read about his other work here.For more on the Cad Factory - https://www.cadfactory.com.au.Here is a story on ABC RN Big Ideas show about the Fish Kills projects. More on his work at Sydney UniFor more on ChangeMakers check us out:Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org (where you can also sign up to our email list!)On Facebook, Instagram, Threads - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.socialOn X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatattsOn LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall 

There is a lot of talk about co-design and community engagement in research and public policy - but in practice a lot of that talk ends up looking like window dressing rather than real community partnership.We talk to one of the world's leading co-design, community engaged researchers in nursing - Professor Brendan McCormak Head of the Nursing School at the University of Sydney - to find out strategies for how he involves patients and nurses in the creation of research. The result is not only an amazing story about a career of co-created knowledge, but a series of powerful insights and strategies for anyone interested in the art of working WITH others in building solutions and knowledge.You can find out more about Brendan here.For more on ChangeMakers check us out:Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org (where you can also sign up to our email list!)On Facebook, Instagram, Threads - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.socialOn X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatattsOn LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall

The second Trump Administration has brought with it an unprecedented attack on migrants, led by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) focused on people who are living in the United States without formal documentation. In this conversation we talk with Alexandra Pineros Shields - a long term community organiser, immigrant rights campaigner and researcher about how communities are fighting back to defend the rights of migrants and change how policing is done.This conversation explores Alexandra's history of organising and building strategy to make change, as well as the kinds of innovative tactics being used by communities to combat ICE. She runs through techniques like power analysis and shows how a practical understanding of different dimensions of power can help build effective strategy. She talks about the power of communities using prefigurative action - where they model what the state should be doing - as a way to tell a story to make change more compelling.This episode is a deep dive into what you might have seen on the news - it is a reassuring and inspiring reminder that even in the face of repression and abusive of power, there is also power in community to respond and make change.In the podcast a few different organisations are mentioned, here is where you can find out more:John Gaventa - When Alexandra teaches she asks students read chapter 4 from The Miner’s Canary. We also have links of a diagram that Alexandra uses with organisers on our website. ‘Midwife for Power’: Towards a Mujerista/Womanist Model of Community Organizing - https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/ijcre/article/view/7771/7855 Ayni Institute - https://ayni.institute/The Right Question Institute (Cambridge, Massachusetts) – Question Formulation Technique - https://rightquestion.org/what-is-the-qft/  City of Boston – City of Belonging Campaign For more on ChangeMakers check us out:Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org (where you can also sign up to our email list!)On Facebook, Instagram, Threads - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.socialOn X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatattsOn LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall

Climate change has led the Northern Rivers has been inundated by flood and flood threats, but it has also shown Australia - and the world - what it looks like to lead a community response to climate change. In this episode we talk with Rebecca McNaught, a community researcher on disaster response who shares with us how the community did respond to the extreme floods in 2022, and what all communities can learn from what they did.Bec has decades of experience in community-led climate work, having worked across the Pacific and the world before focusing on researching best practice in community strategies. She was undertaking field work when the 2022 floods began, and she helped lead emergency support with others in her neighbourhood before she finished her PhD documenting best practice.In this conversation she argues that big concepts like "climate change adaptation" and creating climate infrastructure are at their heart about building strong social bonds between people who can be there for each other when dialling 000 no longer works.For more on the Northern Rivers Community Resilience Alliance see here.For information on the University of Sydney's University Centre for Rural Health see here.For more on ChangeMakers check us out:Via our Website - https://changemakerspodcast.org (where you can also sign up to our email list!)On Facebook, Instagram, Threads - https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMakersPodcast/Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.socialOn X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatattsOn LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall