‘The Stand-Up Project’ (SUP) is a peer designed and led training program for students that responds to how young people experience and respond to discrimination, harassment and bullying at school.

By drawing on community development values and principles as well as a social constructivist perspective, my study aimed to understand how people who are homeless and the volunteers who serve them perceive their roles in terms of empowerment and disempowerment. Research outcomes suggested volunteers feel elements of perceived and actual power in their volunteerism. Such power stems from a belief that volunteering benefits the volunteer, people experiencing homelessness and broader society. These findings were consistent with existing literature and popular discourse; however, volunteers also expressed guilt and a reluctance to self-identify as a volunteer. This reticence, which accompanied volunteers’ scrutiny of the role’s characterisation as superior, ran contrary to how scholarship and popular discourse often understand volunteers. Participants with experience of homelessness characterised the role of the ‘homeless person’ through notions of disempowerment and empowerment. They perceived disempowerment in the various ways they experience social disconnection: family rejection, a lack of companionship through friends and low-quality or precarious relationships within the home-less community. They also connected socially expected behaviours, rights, obligations, beliefs and norms to the disempowerment of welfare users. Nevertheless, through topics of public space, safety and protection, these participants expressed a sense of belonging and perceived empowerment. Crucially, 13 of the 18 ‘homeless’ participants had volunteered in the homelessness sector. This observation expanded the study’s analytical focus beyond an oppression-privilege binary in order to explore the nuances of participants’ complex social positions. As a result, the study tracked the ways by which volunteering challenges what it means to be ‘homeless’ and how it helps some ‘homeless people’ overcome aspects of the power inequalities encountered in mainstream society and welfare contexts.

Chris Church Community Centre works towards supporting people experiencing homelessness. Within this position, I was responsible for community engagement, research and funding applications.

Working for SEA involved launching a new NGO and waste management project in Zanzibar, Tanzania. The role included consultation with diverse stakeholders, comprising of local government, environmental groups and NGO’s, and developing participatory programs to ensure the project was sustainable and empowering in the long term. Identifying cultural and religious barriers, and ensuring projects were instigated by the community in an appropriate and effective manner, was a major focus of my role.