Real voices

Wanting to change the world was not common in Egyptian culture. I went into the poorest areas, where the women ‘waste pickers’ were collecting garbage. I wanted to work with them as they have nothing. If their husband dies, leaves them, or disappears, they either have to get remarried or become a prostitute and the kids become destitute. They have no choice. I wanted to help them have a choice.…Read more

Sarah Breaux, Senior Executive Assistant at Bristol University Press, shares her thoughts on The Right Amount of Panic by Fiona Vera-Gray. Reading this book enabled me to think back on my experiences as a woman and evaluate the evolution of my behaviour over time. I had never thought about it as a continuous aspect of Read More

Capturing the voices, views and experiences of children and young people directly and involving them more actively in the research process are increasingly seen as essential for good social research, evaluation, policy and service development. Often, the perspectives of children and young people are filtered through the interpretations of adults: with either parents or carers Read More

Generation Share: The change-makers building the Sharing Economy by Benita Matofska and Sophie Sheinwald is out this month. The book takes readers on a journey around the globe to meet the people who are changing lives by building a Sharing Economy. Haitham Deeb who is a 30-year-old Palestinian, a farmer, a football player for the Read More

I knew I was transgender from about the age of four, even though the word did not exist then. I knew I was a girl, even though I had a boy’s body. You couldn’t talk about how you felt, tell others you were really a girl, when everything about you said the opposite.…Read more

Sharing means saving future generations; if we offer better education, children can grow up to be good human beings, making a positive contribution to the world. When my best friend was 11, he dropped out of school to work. He spent his money on drinking, gambling and smoking. I was lucky, my father encouraged me to study. …Read more

We crowdfund rent though reoccurring micro donations for people who are denied access to housing because of their immigration status. Some people are forced to cross borders regularly; they arrive in this country and are not entitled to work or get housing benefit, their access to housing is non-existent. It forces people into homelessness and destitution. …Read more

Following the publication of The End of Aspiration by Duncan Exley, Alice Harper, a recent graduate, speaks about her experience of expectation, aspiration and finding a job after graduation. Having attained an education to be proud of, I had high expectations of myself as a graduate. It turns out that being able and willing to Read More

Early in my career when I was a rookie reporter, a good while before I began writing about poverty, a conversation took place that keeps coming back like a niggling alarm on snooze.…Read more

I was born in Chelmsford in Essex and grew up in Heybridge, near Maldon, on a council estate with my mum. I remember a girl who went to my school. Her parents were both artists and they talked about her going to university. It was worlds away from my life. I wasn’t told that I could be anything.…Read more