Our vision is a future free from inequality, where everyone can be happy, healthy and active. We do this by embracing our identity as a thinking and doing organisation – working with communities, partners and funders to deliver sustainable change while positively disrupting systems through thought leadership and training.
Active citizenship
To make a tangible difference, that can be felt in the lives of ordinary people, change must come from the bottom up – from our neighbourhoods to the whole of society. Communities can drive national transformation, but not everyone starts from the same level playing field.
An active citizenship approach to help improve wellbeing, tackle wider structural inequalities and help bridge the gap between policy and practice, can harness the transformative power in our communities.
Our role is to facilitate, champion and collaborate with people, communities and systems to build resilience and tackle inequalities. If prevention is to be done properly, there needs to be a shift in funding, culture and service models at national, system and local level.
– Desmond Tutu
The parable of the three friends and the river illustrates this challenge, and the ways in which we are practicing preventative approaches. One friend rescues people from drowning downstream, a second friend throws people a life jacket to save them from temporarily drowning, and the third friend swims upstream to fix the broken bridge.
Read more about how we’ve worked with communities on their journeys to Active Citizenship.
We recognise how influential social factors such as access to healthcare, education, income and environment can be to determining a person’s health. We support communities on their journey to better wellbeing – through social, physical and civic activity – whilst working with the system to try to tackle the ideas, behaviours and policies that uphold structural injustices.
Read more about how we can help you work with communities.
Our values
Everything we do is underpinned by a values-led approach – an open heart, open mind and open will – and draws on a range of frameworks and tools including: Theory U, Deep Democracy, Network of Wellbeing’s Five Ways to Wellbeing Framework, and the Thinking Environment™.
Open Heart
Letting go of judgement to see with fresh eyes.
Open Mind
Daring to be vulnerable to co-create.
Open Will
Letting go of preconceptions to act on our principles.
