Who we are
Our People
Founded in 2008, Tripod is a collective of facilitators, trainers and organisers from a range of grassroots backgrounds, identities and experiences.
TripodTripod: Training for Creative Social Action
TripodFounded in 2008, Tripod is a collective of facilitators, trainers and organisers from a range of grassroots backgrounds, identities and experiences.
Olga is an experienced trainer, facilitator and project coordinator. Before Tripod she worked with Nourish Scotland, a NGO campaigning for food justice, where she focused both on grassroots movement-building and policy change. She has a background in Social Anthropology and has been involved with different groups working for social and climate justice over the past 10 years. She’s interested in how we can support each other to act collectively and strategically in this time of spiralling social and ecological chaos, and stay resourced for the long-haul.
Likes: Mustard yellow, collecting (and sharing) poems, creative porridge-making, funky Dutch sayings.
Dislikes: Sitting still for too long, Zoom issues, Brie cheese.
Aoife joined Tripod in August 2020 as a trainer, facilitator and project coordinator. They have a background in science and have been involved in feminist organising, campaigns for reproductive justice, queer liberation and climate justice. Having participated in various kinds of organising groups and contexts they’re fascinated by the ways in which we can counter wider injustice and transform our ways of working from the small scale and create effective, subversive, dynamic and fulfilling movement spaces. Aoife can be found baking, knitting, and reading YA & sci-fi.
Likes: chocolate, spreadsheets, hot drinks of all kinds.
Dislikes: turnips, the cold and the colour yellow.
Venus has a background in facilitation, training and project coordination. From a young age, Venus was inspired by her family’s activism in Sudan and has been involved in working to contribute to the social change in Sudan. She worked and volunteered with human rights and development charities in Sudan, the Netherlands and the UK. Venus’ activism focuses on advocating for social justice and change through knowledge and meaningful participation.
Venus is passionate about working with refugees, migrants and asylum seekers especially around identity and mental health. Venus also gets great pleasure from supporting people with lived experience of the UK immigration system in their journeys to reignite their power, as she also grappled with questions around confidence, belonging and identity while fighting structural racism and other systems of oppression at a personal and professional levels in the UK.
Likes: dancing, reading comics and watching anime, cats , naps and charity shops
Dislikes: shopping malls, unfairness, competition, interrupted sleep cycles, violence
Joy is a facilitator & trainer with a background in union & community organising, police monitoring, performance arts & youth activism. Joining Tripod in 2024, they co-deliver the Consultations, Collaboration & Training (CCT) programme. They are also a somatic coach, and a member of ‘Urgent Bodies’, a collective of artist-organisers activating corporeality for political resistance. Before Tripod they delivered national campaigns & training programmes at NUS UK & The Ella Baker School of Organising. They are passionate about relational culture, co-liberation, uprooting white supremacy & loving the Earth.
Likes: bargains, gherkins, storms, cemeteries, smiles from strangers
Dislikes: unsorted tupperware (tupp-apocalypse), grass stains, ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ decor
Zoe joined the Organising For Power team in November 2019 as a facilitator and Project Coordinator. Previously based in Belgium and France working as a facilitator and Sex Educator within school systems and for antiracism NGOs, Zoe also dabbled in Feminist Hacktivism, a solidarity network for local Jewish and Muslim LGBTQI+ youth and advocacy for accessibility & inclusivity within activist spaces. They strongly believe in the need for self advocacy and centring the voices of those directly affected by an issue when fighting for any social change.
Likes: Comic books, accessible techy gear, cooking traditional Tunisian Jewish couscous and baking the challah for Friday evenings.
Dislikes: steps in front of doors, warm apple sauce, the sound of fabric tearing.
Etzali is a nonbinary latinx queer poet, web developer, DJ, No Borders organiser, and social justice trainer. They were involved with Tripod as a coordinator and trainer for the first cohort of Organising for Power.
As a developer, they have worked for the third sector since 2018 in projects such as the Refugee Festival Scotland, Cerebral Palsy Scotland, Unity Sisters and Black Digital Archives.
Their poetry work has been published in Ascend Magazine, We Were Always Here: A Queer Words Anthology, and Ceremony (Scottish BAME Writers Network). Etzali’s first poetry pamphlet is forthcoming from Forest Publications. Website: www.panditita.uk.
Likes: pandas, plants, beach, dancing, reading and laughing
Dislikes: worms, doing the dishes (ha!), the cold, pisces lovers
Shan has been training and facilitating in Scotland and all corners of Europe since 2006. They have been active in climate justice organising, autonomous spaces, tenants rights and direct action movements. They’re also a founding member of The Class Work Project.
Shan is particularly interested in supporting groups to make decisions, develop structures and systems for effective non-hierarchical organising, and confront the ways systemic oppression is reproduced in our movements.
In their spare time they are most likely to be found cooking, reading, partaking in diy arts and cultural pursuits, lifting heavy things or climbing a wall.
Kirtana is a long time environmental and social justice campaigner. In her day job she helps coordinate a global environmental federation and works closely with organised peoples in social movements particularly in the majority world.
Her work is focussed on transformative and liberatory strategies for environmental justice, dismantling corporate power and systems of oppression – patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism and racism. Her personal interests are in collective care in movements, the symbiosis between personal and collective transformation and radical left theory.
Likes: Wildflowers, wildflowers, wildflowers! The miracles of nature in everyday life, growing tomatoes in Scotland, sambar and dosa, reggaeton, afrobeat, hanging out and learning about life with my awesome kids, massages.
Dislikes: Hierarchy and power play within movements, cold water, cold wind, the cold in general, fake plants, trying to live an expansive and fulfilling life within capitalism.
Elena is a facilitator, writer, researcher, community activist, and leader of organisational development. For over a decade she’s been creating spaces for groups to explore and develop narrative; designing and leading framing projects; shaping organisational strategy and creating new organisational infrastructure, and has recently joined KIN as a co-director, seeking to create spaces for liberation, healing and joy for black activism.
She’s also an aspiring artist, tarot dabbler, and Octavia Butler fan, and parenting a toddler who likes cats more than people. Originally from East London, raised in Manchester, now fully rooted in the rolling green of mid-Wales: her ideal landscape for radical imagining.
Jessica is a writer and climate justice organiser. She works part-time as a Digital Campaigns Manager for Lighthouse, Edinburgh’s radical bookshop, facilitating connections between readers, grassroots campaigners, community groups and writers. She’s the author of the novel How We Are Translated (2021) and the essay collection The Nerves and their Endings (2022). Over the years she’s been active in various activist collectives, including Global Justice Bloc and Climate Camp Scotland.
Likes: swimming in lakes, Fridays, drumming, wall-climbing (with ropes), almost all of the ice-cream
Dislikes: being cold, bad subtitling, rum and raisin ice-cream
Anu Priya is a community builder, facilitator and strategist with a strong relationship with grassroots communities and movements, in part due to being born into a family of activists.
Their work focuses on building anti-oppressive practices rooted in deep and unapologetic accountability to communities most harmed by dominant systems. Their particular skills are in the areas of transition and transformation required for us to move from the world that is to the world that could be.
Likes: eating food with fingers, naps, gifs, Lego, googly eyes
Dislikes: ‘imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, cis-heteropatriarchy’, tiny triangle sandwiches pretending to be lunch at trainings and conferences, loud shrill noises, the look of crumpets 🤢
Ellie Muniandy is an anti-oppression queer POC therapist, trainer and facilitator who has supported many organisations with their anti-racism journeys. They have worked in the third sector for many years in disability, mental health and violence against women and obtained experience in strategic and operational development and governance for charities. They have a keen interest in organisational culture change, and currently work as the EDI Officer for a public sector organisation.
Kathryn has been involved in various ways in environmental and social justice movements for more than 35 years and has been offering training and facilitation to grassroots groups and movements since 2004. She was a founding member of the training collective Seeds for Change Oxford (now Navigate). She is passionate about supporting groups to collaborate effectively, engage with conflict, address power dynamics and build resilient systems and cultures.
To help her stay energised she loves walking through woodlands or by the sea, growing things, hanging out with friends and meditating.
Ellie Muniandy is an anti-oppression queer POC therapist, trainer and facilitator who has supported many organisations with their anti-racism journeys. They have worked in the third sector for many years in disability, mental health and violence against women and obtained experience in strategic and operational development and governance for charities. They have a keen interest in organisational culture change, and currently work as the EDI Officer for a public sector organisation.
Kathryn has been involved in various ways in environmental and social justice movements for more than 35 years and has been offering training and facilitation to grassroots groups and movements since 2004. She was a founding member of the training collective Seeds for Change Oxford (now Navigate). She is passionate about supporting groups to collaborate effectively, engage with conflict, address power dynamics and build resilient systems and cultures.
To help her stay energised she loves walking through woodlands or by the sea, growing things, hanging out with friends and meditating.
