Campaigners on the airwaves

Lucent’s Founder and Director Katherine Rake has been working behind the scenes on a new Radio 4 programme “Generation Change”.

Generation Change is a new Radio 4 series all about social change. Each programme features four campaigners from two different generations working on the same issue. The result is moving personal stories, inspiring passion for change and stark reminders about the work still to be done to achieve social justice.

We spoke to Katherine Rake to find out more about the story behind the programme.

“I first started developing the idea during some of the darkest days of the pandemic. Lucent had the privilege of working with organisations who had immediately risen to the challenges thrown at them by the pandemic. And I had also had late night phone calls with the people leading those organisations, I knew first hand the personal price they were paying to make change happen. I was curious to learn more and to see if there were lessons that could be shared across generations about how to make change happen - and how to keep your personal passion for change alive even in challenging circumstances.”

“I got in touch with broadcaster Samira Ahmed, who I had met a number of years before, to see if she was interested in working together to develop a radio programme. It turns out we share a curiosity and fascination for social change and the people behind the campaigns. And we discovered that not only were we from same generation, we were both born in 1968 - itself a year of considerable turmoil.”

“And the idea felt very timely. If you’d asked us 10 years ago, we may well have shared a fear that younger generations in an era of social media would become passive consumers, disconnected and disengaged from politics. But mass campaigns such as #metoo and Black Lives Matter were showing that campaigning is very much alive and kicking.”

Fast forward to March 2022, and Samira and Katherine were joined in the radio studio by campaigners working for racial justice, to end violence against women and for access to food and housing sharing decades of collective wisdom about social change. Samira’s interviews asked what was the spark that started their personal journey? What change had they seen in their lifetimes and what had proved elusive? And what lessons and wisdom could be shared across the generations?

Reflecting on what she heard during the three programmes, Katherine concludes:

“I was moved by what I heard. It was both a sobering reminder of the continued labour that each generation needs to do to raise the profile of key social issues and to get action taken. But it was inspiring to hear the victories and the passion and commitment to make change happen shared across the generations.”

You can listen to Generation Change by catching up on BBC Sounds.