Festive Q&A with our inspirational Game Changers
24th December 2024
This Christmas, we’re celebrating the incredible individuals making a difference in their communities, keeping advocacy and heritage alive in creative, meaningful ways. To spread the holiday cheer, Lisa, our Campaigns Executive, asked a few of these inspiring Community and Heritage Game Changers some festive questions. So, grab a hot drink and let these answers remind you of the magic of the season and the power of giving back.
Q: If you could gift one thing to your community this season, what would it be?
Sandra Igwe – Founder of The Motherhood Group
A: It would be universal access to culturally competent mental health support for Black mothers. Through my work with The Motherhood Group, I've seen how transformative it can be when mothers receive care that truly understands and respects their experiences. This gift would mean every Black mother could access the support she needs during the crucial perinatal period, helping to create healthier, happier families and stronger communities.
Trevor Lyttleton MBE – Founder of Re-engage (formerly Contact the Elderly)
A: The reassurance that volunteers will be there to offer the vital link of companionship and tender loving care for all isolated members of the community, not just at Christmas, but on a regular basis throughout the year as we have been doing for 60 years.
Marcus Fair – Founder of charity, Eternal Media
A: If I could give one gift to the community this Christmas, it would be to go around with my film crew into old folks’ homes and capture living testimony memories before they're lost forever of peoples Christmas' many years ago including wartime. Create a series of short digestible documentaries from them to leave a legacy for today's youth, along with raising awareness of social isolation especially among the elderly within our communities. Possibly have young people trained up into community journalists to allow for total ownership of the film series by the community that we support to make them.
Q: What’s your favourite Christmas tradition or memory?
Sandy Bremner – Convener of the Cairngorms National Park Authority
A: An invitation to step into the countryside and appreciate the wonders on our doorsteps.
Lisa Power MBE – Sexual health and LGBTQIA+ rights campaigner
A: If I could give anything to my community this year it would be the strength to abide, because all kinds of prejudices are resurfacing, and we need to stay strong to turn back bigotry and ignorance once more.
Chantelle Lindsay - Project Coordinator at London Wildlife Trust, Co-Presenter of children’s wildlife programme ‘Teeny Tiny Creatures’ on CBeebies
A: I would gift love to my community this season because who doesn't need a bit more love? Especially at this time of the year where the darkness draws in quicker, and the cold gets into your bones. I adore all the ways it's possible to show love and so I'd want my community to receive love and give love in even the smallest of ways - a smile to a stranger, a kind word to a friend or a gift that helps someone out. Love unites us and we need unity to be a community.
Arthur Torrington - Community advocate dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Windrush Generation
A: As one of the National Lottery’s Game Changers, my Christmas memory is the launch of Transport for London’s Windrush Line in 2024 and Windrush Foundation's contribution.
Lisa Power MBE - Sexual health and LGBTQIA+ rights campaigner
A: I smile when I remember how I avoided boring family Christmases in my younger days by persuading my parents that it meant they knew when I did visit them that I was there because I wanted to be and wasn’t being forced by convention. True but cheeky - and I did visit them a lot.
