Citizens UK

Citizens UK is a community organising charity that helps people build power and strategy to make real social change. Across England and Wales, charities, schools, religious organisations and community groups come together to create local alliances. Together, the alliance commits to listening to individuals in their institutions and the issues that they care about: the things putting pressure on them and the people they love, and the things they wish they could change. Having identified these things, the Citizens alliance will work to put together an action plan for tackling them, breaking bigger problems down into smaller, winnable issues, identifying decision makers and building their collective voice in order to win change.

Community organising is all about equipping ordinary people to build their power with others and make a difference. Over the autumn, Leicester and Leicestershire Citizens are running their Listening Campaign: an opportunity for people to listen for issues within their institutions. Residents Wisdom and Jess will be leading the listening campaign within their churches and their local communities, as well as within the Community. This year, we are asking these questions:

• What is putting pressure on you and the people you love?
• What makes you angry that you wish you could change?

In this Listening Campaign, we are not looking to fix problems, but are looking to hear people, identify issues, and build relational power through this listening, in order to prepare for planning action in the new year.

If you would like to run the Listening Campaign in your church or local community, email anna.bland@leicestercofe.org to find out how you can do this.