Angela formed RIPEN in 2016 to support neighbourhoods to grow power and institutions to give up power. The income from workshops enables Angela to be involved in rekindling democracy in her home town of Wigan, as a citizen alongside other citizens in her neighbourhood.
Angela has more than 30 years experience of working alongside and within communities and neighbourhoods.
She is in favour of asset based community development and community health and wealth building. She enjoys being alongside citizens who want to rekindle the seven community functions. She does this as an associate of Nurture Development.
Angela is also in favour of the ideas that Hilary Cottam presents in Radical Help. She tested out those ideas working alongside families within a Wigan community that she spent her early years living in, and her teenage years getting up to mischief in. Her insights from this period and her experience of system change from within a system led to her leaving the system and setting up RIPEN.
She believes that it’s time for a new narrative and the rekindling of neighbourhood democracy. The older and wiser that she becomes she notices that institutional leaders come and go. The only thing that does remain constant are the citizens, the people who live there and that is why she is in favour of neighbourhood democracy.
Angela is also in favour of time with family, friendship, Jimmy the motorhome, being in nature, citizen led action, social justice, a good cup of coffee and her home town of Wigan.
You can read more of Angela's story here.
