Inspired by stories

This week, I spent two evenings in a Zoom room with fellow members of Oxford Citizens, taking part in training on community organising. The group included people from Oxford Jewish Congregation, Oxfordshire Community Land Trust, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, the charity Church Mission Society and two of us from Oxford Unitarians, of course. There was delicious hot chocolate (on my end, at least), and a lot of great stories about power, relationships, and what it really takes to make change happen.

We learned practical tools for building power – both within our own organisations and between us – so that we can make positive changes in Oxford and beyond. Things like house meetings and intentional one-to-ones: simple practices that help build strong relationships and turn shared concern into collective action. I’ve already reached out to a few members I don’t know so well to invite them for a one-to-one, and I’m really looking forward to those conversations.

I was especially inspired by a story about Brighton & Hove Citizens, who began only a few years before we did. We heard how they grew from winning a campaign to reopen a public toilet in a Jewish cemetery, to securing £600,000 in funding for mental health counsellors in schools across Brighton and Hove. They are now organising around affordable housing. It was a powerful reminder of what can happen when communities stay focused, relational, and persistent.

What moved me most, though, was a video made by St Antony’s Catholic Primary School in Forest Gate, East London, about the Real Living Wage campaign.

Hearing about the impact of low wages on key workers—told by the children of those very workers—brought me to tears. Especially the line: “Mum can’t feed the family on claps and rainbows.” Please do have a listen to these primary-school powerhouses. This is what I love most about our work with Citizens UK: young people, and those who are not used to having a voice, get to lead campaigns, speak truth, and experience their own power.

All of this has left me feeling excited about the event we’re organising next week: the Oxford Citizens Delegates Assembly, on Tuesday 3rd February 2026. We’ll be gathering again with other members of the alliance, sharing what issues are affecting our communities most right now, and choosing our first campaign to work on together. I can’t wait.

If you’d like to get involved in the social justice work we do, come to our service this Sunday 1st February 2026 (in the chapel of Harris Manchester College OX1 3TD) and stay afterwards for our Social Justice Team meeting. We meet at the college on the first Sunday of each month from 12.30–1.30pm, and there is usually food. New people are always very welcome.

Grateful for the stories – and looking forward to building more power.
More soon.
Holly, leader of our Social Justice Team