Facilitators

Our values

We are all here to grow and deepen our practice

Everyone that partakes in this programme, including the practitioners delivering sessions, is committed to self-reflection, staying curious and being open to different experiences and points of view. We don’t gatekeep; we take our learnings back to our communities and are committed to others growing in their practice too.

We centre liberation and justice

Through our practice and relationships we seek opportunities to dismantle oppressive systems, address harm and disrupt unhealthy power imbalances. We surface and talk about power openly, we respond with care and practice active allyship rooted in awareness of our position, conditioning and impact.

We invest in relationships with others and with ourselves

We are all here because we want and choose to be here, and in the process we commit to showing up as fully as we can for our peers and ourselves. We stretch, take breaks, rest as we need to - and encourage others to do the same. We practice active, somatic listening — tuning into what's said, unsaid, and felt - to make space for everything that needs to be heard to be heard.

We embrace emergence, complexity and multiplicity

We let go of binaries and fixed answers, staying open to ambiguity, difference, and the unknown. We resist the urge to have the “right” answer, and instead practice humility and curiosity when things are unclear. We experiment, reflect, and adapt as we go.

These programmes are delivered by a collective of facilitators:

  • Ray (They/them)

    Ray is a facilitator and DEI practitioner working with civil society and community/activist groups for the past 15 years to deepen their connections, build understanding, navigate conflict, and create shared commitments.

    Alongside their paid work Ray also runs a housing co-operative, provides facilitation and culture development support to Radical Routes (a network of co-ops) and regularly facilitates community organising groups such as OUT prison abolition group, and the Queer Care Collective.

    Ray is also a level 4 trained Restorative Justice Facilitator and doing more transformative justice and harm reduction work within their communities.

    They also regularly write about the nuances of facilitating different dynamics and groups.

  • Abi (she/her)

    Abi Handley is a facilitator and team coach, supporting teams to embed effective working practices and centering equity, awareness about power and effective collaborative approaches to working.

    Her focus in work is to support people within teams to be conscious of how they are working with and for each-other and those they are centering their work around, adapting and iterating on their practices to change the dynamics that are central in our system to be more equitable.

    Her specific experience in equity, power and money work is wide and varied, from developing radical approaches to pay within her own co-operative organisation to supporting funding organisations and networks to distribute funding collaboratively, and working with numerous organisations around their own approach to power, hierarchy, equity and value exchange.

    LinkedIn Website

  • Benedicta (she/her)

    Benedicta is a Creative Practice Director and founder of Golden Sankofa, a social enterprise dedicated to transforming places and spaces that nurture community wellbeing, belonging and ownership.

    After a decade in local government, leading transformative projects from Camden's Neighbourhood Spaces programme to post-Grenfell community assets portfolio, she experienced burnout and anxiety that became a turning point. She left local government in 2022 and in 2024, she followed her dream of becoming a social entrepreneur, channeling her expertise in co-design and place-based transformation into work centered on authentic human connection. Her practice weaves strategic thinking with soul-nourishing experiences; community dinners, retreats, and participatory workshops that honor diverse ways of being and knowing.

  • Joel Chippindale (he/him)

    Joel is an executive coach who supports talented technology leaders to accelerate their development both 1-1 and in groups.

    He is also an experienced facilitator and has spent nearly 20 years in leadership positions, supporting people and teams to have better conversation and think more clearly together.

    Website

  • Elyem (she/her)

    Elyem is an educator and organiser who supports groups to build their facilitation practice in complex, real-world contexts. Her work is rooted in experiential learning and political education, with a focus on supporting movements to increase their strategic and political capacity.

    She has designed and facilitated learning programmes and trainings with over 900 people across the world, including in tenants’ unions, grassroots trade unions, and international multicultural education spaces, working with diverse groups navigating difference, power, and change. Her approach centres practice, supporting people to test ideas in real situations, reflect on what happens, and refine their approach over time.

    She is particularly interested in facilitation as a practice that moves people into action and reflection, while building trust, autonomy, and shared responsibility in service of collective liberation.

  • Shimrit (she/her)

    Shimrit [shimREET] is a writer, facilitator, and researcher, working across both digital work and nature connection.

    As a facilitator, she hosts circles across a variety of themes, most commonly related to helping people remember themselves as of nature rather than separate, particularly within urban environments. Her circles often integrate guided visualisation, reflective and creative writing, story, poetry, music, and conversation as a form of helping people ‘remember’ and tune into their own experiences and knowledge.

    Shimrit is also co-author of Nature of Work: The new story of work for a living age (2021), which blends creative writing, professional writing and research to explore what we can learn from and with nature to create more supportive working environments and organisations. Her own current writing takes the form of poetry, prose, and reflective writing across themes such as nature connection, ancestry and heritage, creativity, and how to fall in love with a dying world.

    LinkedIn Website