THE ADVOCATES
MORE THAN JUST DREAMERS
WHY WE DO IT
For Advocates
KNOWING | DOING | BEING | BECOMING
We see the dangerous impact that feeling disaffected can have on the confidence and aspirations of young people. Feeling unrepresented and powerless can lead them down a path of apathy and alienation.
Advocating for social change instills in a young person a sense of self-worth, giving them the power to change their own lives through improving the lives of others. They take the future of the world into their own hands and are no longer voiceless.
Knowledge & Insight: We broaden young people's knowledge of the world and the role they want to play in it, helping to extend their learning beyond the classroom. Our team of experts address real-world issues and the tactics that successfully effect change.
Skills: We know that many students leave education unprepared to lead in the real world. Academic qualifications do not always teach the skills they need to succeed. That’s why we focus on developing
three skills every leader and employer needs: Collaboration, communication & critical thinking.
Character: To make a difference, young people need healthy attitudes towards themselves and the world. They need to believe that change is possible and that they are capable of creating it. That’s why every element of our programme focuses on developing 6 key strengths: confidence, leadership, compassion, Grit, self-awarenes & hope.
Networks & Access: We know that young people from disadvantaged communities lack access to people with power and influence. We introduce them to powerful campaigners, grassroots organisers, politicians and Chief Executives (we could go on...) who expand their networks, deliberately choosing young role models to demonstrate that power isn’t always connected to age. And our participants join a small cohort who experience the year together, becoming a close-knit network of their own.
Action: In developing all of the above, our Advocates will embark on a path of life-long democratic participation. They take part in campaigns, vote in elections, advocate on behalf of causes, dream big for themselves and their communities, self-educate, and generally "become the change" they want to see.
For Schools
- Promotes the spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development of pupils and of society
- Prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life
- Supports the school’s provision of personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE)
- Actively promotes fundamental "British" values
- Curriculum links to many subjects, including Citizenship, RE, Geography, English and History
- Teaches leadership skills that Fellows can use to improve their school community
- Encourages a greater sense of citizenship within schools
- Enhances written and oral communication through speech writing and delivery, debates and discussion
For Society
For the Community: We are developing a new generation of community leaders who work together to make their local areas better places to grow up and live. We believe that we must increase active citizenship and strengthen local networks in order to assure the future vibrancy of British democracy. Our Advocates generate a ripple effect, impacting their families, friends, schools and wider communities.
For Society: Civil society is dominated by the privileged few. Valuable voices are missing from the debate, leading to policies and provisions that fail to reflect the diverse experiences and interests of all our communities. Good policy needs everyone's input.
Our Advocates are these voices.
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Your donations allow us to create this incredible community of social justice leaders.
education not exclusion + no lost causes
staff
Amelia Viney
Pronoun: she
Founder & Chief Advocate
Amelia has a background in Youth Movement leadership, and cut her teeth in politics as a Parliamentary Researcher in Westminster and a civil rights lobbyist in Washington, DC. She is hugely passionate about bringing these two worlds together to empower young leaders to improve their own lives and the lives of others.
Saba Shafi
Pronoun: she
Managing Director
Saba has an MBA from Wharton and eight years of management consultancy experience. She kicked-off her career leading healthcare initiatives in refugee camps and diversity and inclusion programmes in graduate schools in the US. Saba is passionate about growing TAA. She would also like to go into space, if anyone has a ticket.
Liz Ward
Pronoun: she
Programmes Director
Liz is an educator, collaborator and activist, who first found her feet in Climate Justice after graduating in Zoology. She spent the start of her career travelling the length and breadth of the country, delivering workshops and speeches in schools, followed by managing a youth project in London, working with survivors of exploitation. She has been known to spit a few bars on the spoken word poetry scene and is still living off the glory of being signed to Everton Football Club U13s team.
Imane Maghrani
Pronoun: she
Spark Programme Manager
Imane is a social justice educator who loves creating spaces where young people are heard, seen and supported to thrive. Starting her career in academia, she took a winding path through the private and non-profit sectors, picking up a lot of love for programme management, pedagogy and anti-oppression facilitation along the way. Her greatest passion is elevating the voices of young people around the world. She also sings (rather decently) and plays basketball (rather poorly), and her most important love language is fruit.
Tom Ross Williams
Pronoun: they
Alumni & Creative Director
Tom is an actor, theatre-maker and activist. Their passion is bringing together the arts and social justice. They have been a Changemaker with The Advocacy Academy for over five years. In their role as Creative Director they develop partnerships with arts organisation and find innovative ways to integrate arts into the Fellowship as both a tool for pedagogy and for change.
Darcey Williamson
Pronoun: she
Leadership Director
Darcey has over 10 years experience of youth work and social justice education, tackling many different forms of violence young people endure and co-running anti-gentrification projects. With an MA in Applied Anthropology and Youth Work, Darcey aligns her practice with a self-emancipatory, radical youth work paradigm. As Leadership Director, Darcey leads our Younger Changemaker Apprenticeship programme, training and supporting our Alumni community to develop the leadership practice and social justice education methods to become Changemakers.
Ellie Dundas
Pronoun: shx
Changemaker (Activist Youth Worker)
Ellie is a proud Black, queer feminist, activist, writer and cultural-political curator. Shx brings a tonne of hands on experience gained over six years of organising in radical and revolutionary activist spaces in Paris, London and across Europe. Ellie believes in the power of grassroots organising for collective liberation and systemic overhaul and continues hxr work in radical social change at TAA.
Rhianna Ilube
Pronoun: she
Changemaker (Activist Youth Worker)
Rhianna has a background in running incredible events and trainings for young people. She moved to Berlin in 2018 where she hosted a podcast and curated participatory events for diaspora communities. She is now studying an MA in Writing for Performance and Dramaturgy at Goldsmiths. She loves history and storytelling, and co-founded 'A History of Everyone Else' to run teach-ins about the British colonial past. She also records oral history interviews for 'The Nigerwives Project', to preserve the stories of women who migrated to Nigeria.
Laurence Palfreyman
Pronoun: he
Liberation Psychology Advisor
Laurence is a psychologist primarily based in the NHS. He's trained in a variety of models including CBT, psychodynamic, systemic, neuropsychology and body-based approaches to the impact of trauma. He is passionate about radical liberation psychology practices that position mental health problems as human responses to oppression and abuses of power. He believes that resistance and campaigning for social change is an essential part of addressing mental health. Laurence supports The Advocacy Academy through training, consultancy and advising on our in-house psychotherapy service.
Alex Johnston
Pronoun: she
Transformative Justice Advisor
Alex has an MA in Social Justice and Education and a plucky disposition. She is obsessive about transformative justice responses to harm and violence within the UK education system and brings her expertise to the curriculum and delivery of TAA's programmes as a trainer, consultant, and advisor.
artist in residence
Eddie Pile (pronoun: they) painted a botanical mural at our campus, inspired by a favourite alumni saying: 'They tried to bury us, they didn't realise we were seeds' (attributed variously to either a Latinx proverb or a queer Greek poet). Alumni nominated flowers for the mural that held personal or cultural significance.
Eddie also make zines. A zine - pronounced zeen - is a DIY self-published magazine/pamphlet/comic that allows anyone with access to print shops or photocopiers to share their ideas or artwork in a cheap and accessible way. They made a zine inspired by Advocacy Academy alumni campaign group Fill In The Blanks, called 'Five Things I Wish I'd Learnt At School About Empire.' You can read, print or share this zine for free from the file below! Alternatively, you can buy it from Eddie's online shop - if you send a screenshot of a donation to TAA when you order, Eddie will send rad little extra thank you gifts...
Eddie also creates resources for their own life as a non-binary/genderqueer person, please feel free to make use of these gender-neutral toilet signs or They/Them pronoun mini zines. The A4 page version can be folded into a tiny zine, a quick online search of 'fold a4 zine' will give you instructions and demo videos.
Insta | Twitter | Zine Store | Zine Audio
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