CAP: How did you first come to be involved in Church Action on Poverty?
NC: My university degree had been in politics and religion, and I knew that I wanted to do that work – not just study it, but to do it. My passion was how the churches could make a difference.
I worked on a project called the Churches National Housing Coalition, in 1991. I had helped set it up and Church Action on Poverty then took it on. I was doing community work in Hulme in Manchester at the time, and housing was the main issue.
Then a few years later in 1997, the then director Paul Goggins was selected to stand as an MP, and I was appointed as director.
CAP: What are some of your stand-out highlights of your time with the organisation?
NC: Two big supporter moments were the Pilgrimage Against Poverty in 1999, and the Tax Justice bus tour in partnership with Christian Aid in 2013. In 1999, we organised a nine-week pilgrimage from Iona to Westminster. Six people walked the whole way, but thousands of people joined along the route, for a mile or a day or a week.
It was a significant thing for people to be part of, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We took a political message and it was amazing – we had a big rally in Trafalgar Square, a service in St Martin-in-the-Fields and the six people who had walked all the way met with the Chancellor, Gordon Brown.
NC: …Along with Oxfam, we introduced Participatory Budgeting to the UK and got the Government to fund us to set up a unit that advised local government. This resulted in over 120 participatory budgeting projects in local communities around the country, each involving hundreds of people – so tens of thousands of people had a direct say in how pots of money were spent in their communities.
A second big community impact success has been Your Local Pantry. We took a very local idea and have enabled 120 communities (and counting!) to open Local Pantries, which are bringing people together through food, and enabling great things to happen. The characteristic of both of those areas of work is that they empower communities to have control and dignity and agency.”
NC:…Another area where we have made strides is in the growing recognition of the importance of prioritising lived experience voices. I draw huge inspiration from activists who have refused to give up.
CAP: What is your parting message to UK churches?
NC: The big task for churches is helping build a powerful movement in which people do feel they have agency, dignity and power, and in which they have enough allies to push back and say ‘enough; we are not going to take this any more’. Churches should invest in that, rather than sticking plaster solutions.
All photos credit: Church Action on Poverty.