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.
Monette is a trainer, coach and programme coordinator focused on the Migrant and Racial Justice Programme. She has 15 years’ experience in designing and delivering innovative, experiential and rights/power-based learning courses, focusing on analysing the systems that deprive the marginalised of opportunities, effective tactics to challenge the status quo, and how, through collective action, individuals can work together to be greater than the sum of the parts. She has a background in international development and social work. Her passion lies in exploring the link between spirituality and social activism as she believes that social change should go hand-in-hand with personal transformation.
Likes: dancing, bohemian interiors, forest walks, liberation theology & folk arts.
Dislikes: cold, wet and grey days.
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.
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.
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.
Venus has joined Tripod as the newest member of the brilliant Organising for Power team in her role as Migrant & Racial Justice Programme Co-ordinator! She 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
Hannah joined Tripod in January 2022 to tackle the new role of Operations Coordinator. Before joining Tripod, Hannah worked at different community cycling projects, setting up youth cycling projects, women & non-binary mechanics programmes, and bike projects for refugees & asylum seekers. She has experience teaching young people in the outdoors and co-founding a workers’ coop. Hannah found her way into organising through the environmental movement as a young person, and has since been involved in community organising and migrant solidarity groups in Glasgow. She has a passion for smooth systems, shiny spreadsheets, and social justice.
Likes: Playing in the snow, dancing, planning fun activities, cycling up and down big hills, ancient woodland.
Dislikes: Raw onions! Getting wet socks. Angry drivers.
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.
Alys joined the Tripod Board in Autumn 2021. In her day job she works for a women’s equality charity, finding new ways to engage people in intersectional feminism. Her previous work has been in global economic justice campaigning and climate change education. Alys is active in various movements for climate justice, peace, and human rights, as well as being involved in local politics. She’s interested in bringing radical history together with new ideas, and exploring how we bring about system change within and outwith our current structures.
Likes: the sea (to look at and be in), animal facts, Diagnosis Murder, listening to podcasts while crafting
Dislikes: mushrooms, fixing punctures, making phone calls
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.
