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.
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.
Lou is a Trade Union Organiser working in health care and education. Lou has been involved in queer and anti-racist solidarity work, climate and anti-militarism activism and political campaigning.
Yvonne is a Community Development student, co-founder of MORE (Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment) and a migrants rights and social justice campaigner. As a Community Historian, Yvonne leads several walking tours in Glasgow to raise awareness and educate the wider community about the statues, banks and universities in Glasgow and their connection and continued financial enrichment from the slave economy in the Caribbean.
Yvonne successfully campaigned to make sports accessible to students who are International Protection Applicants through the creation of the Asylum Seeker University of Glasgow Sports Membership Support scheme. Yvonne is passionate about experiencing life in its entirety and about serving others and her community. She enjoys nature walks, spending quality time with family and friends, cold water swimming, mountain climbing, cycling and playing jungle speed – which she is totally rubbish at.
