In Doncaster, we have been working with the Council and representatives from community interest companies to deliver Community Reporter training and gather stories themed on people’s experiences of cancer. The goal is to use what people have shared in these stories to make improvements to how people impacted by cancer are cared for.

The training was delivered in the form of in-person workshops and people learned Community Reporter Skills including:

• Storytelling Techniques: The different ways we can support people to tell their lived experience stories
• Responsible Practice: How to look after ourselves and others whilst gathering and sharing stories
• Digital Skills: How technology can be used to record and share lived experience stories
• Sense Making: The value of lived experience stories and how they can be used to create change

So far Community Reporters have collected 21 lived experience stories in the form of photographs, written pieces of text, video interviews, monologues and audio recordings. From first-hand accounts, to stories of people caring for friends, family and loved ones facing cancer, the 2 hours of footage explores screening, diagnosis, referrals, treatment, recovery, living life with cancer and more.

We are creating a short film, using clips from each of the stories, which will be screened at the Conversation of Change event that is set to take place in the coming months. The event will be a chance for people to watch the film, hear insights from the stories and discuss what’s working well and what needs to change when it comes to providing care for people impacted by cancer in Doncaster. The plan is to invite decision makers and people who can influence change to hear the stories and discuss how best they can support progress in cancer care.

Key themes that have emerged from the stories so far and will be explored during the COC include the following:

• Early Intervention
• Communication between professionals
• Health advocacy
• The human experience

If you’re interested in knowing more about the Conversation of Change event, please get in touch for more info: georgia@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk

If you’d like to hear the stories in full, head over to the Community Reporter website by following the link: Well Doncaster | Community Reporter Network

If you or someone you know has been impacted by cancer, and you are looking for support – here as some organisations that could help:

• Firefly: Charity offering free transport to local cancer patients and their families in the borough of Doncaster to regional treatment hospitals.
• Cancer Support UK: Information about useful and relevant charities/bodies who offer help and support to people affected by a cancer diagnosis.
• Macmillan: Find out how Macmillan can support you and get information about different cancer types.

A huge thank you goes out to the Community Reporters and storytellers who have gathered and shared their stories with us as part of this project.

The Department for Work and Pensions is reviewing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) – a benefit that shapes the daily lives of millions of disabled people across the UK. Decisions made in this review will affect how people can pay their bills, access support, move around their communities, and live with dignity. That is why we are bringing people together for a roundtable discussion, and why the voices in the room matter so much. People’s Voice Media’s Head of Partnerships and Practice, Isaac Samuels, tells us why it’s vital that we create this space.

Lived Experience Roundtable on PIP

What is it?

On 5^th May 2026 at 6pm, People’s Voice Media are hosting a 90-minute online roundtable on PIP, as a space for people to share their stories, insights, and reflections. This will help shape a response to the current Personal Independence Payment (PIP) Review led by the Department for Work and Pensions.

This session is part of the wider national Call for Evidence, and it’s really important that the voices of people who live with the realities of PIP are centred, heard, and valued.

About the space

At People’s Voice Media, storytelling is at the heart of how we create change. This space will be grounded in that, offering a supportive environment to share real experiences of PIP, including:

• What’s working and what isn’t
• Experiences of applying, assessments, and decisions
• Where the system feels unfair or inconsistent
• How experiences differ across communities and intersecting identities
• What a more human, fair, and dignified system could look like

Why We’re Holding This Space

Reviews of this scale are too often shaped by data points, policy papers, and assumptions about what disabled people need – rather than real experiences of navigating the system. We wanted to create a space where that balance is corrected. We want people who have actually applied for PIP, been assessed for PIP, appealed decisions, waited anxiously for letters, and built their lives around this support to be able to speak honestly and be heard.

The roundtable is a focused conversation around two simple but powerful questions: What is working well? What is not working so well? From small practical improvements to bigger structural concerns, every contribution helps build a clearer, more truthful picture of how PIP is functioning today.

The insights, stories, and recommendations that come out of the discussion will be carefully captured and turned into a collective lived experience response to the government’s PIP review. We will also share key themes back with participants, partner organisations, and decision-makers who can act on them.

What PIP Enables Me to Do

I want to speak honestly for a moment, because this isn’t just a policy conversation for me – it’s my life. As a disabled person living with mental health conditions, PIP is not a luxury or an extra. It is one of the quiet, essential things that makes a decent life possible. Without it, the gap between simply surviving and actually living becomes very wide.

On a practical level, PIP helps me cover the real costs of being disabled – costs that people outside this experience often don’t see. It helps me pay for taxis on days when public transport is too overwhelming, or when leaving the house at all takes everything I’ve got. It helps me keep my home warm when my body and mind need stability. It helps me buy the food that supports my medication and my energy levels. It helps me pay for the little things – noise-cancelling headphones, a weighted blanket, the right kind of lighting – that make the difference between a manageable day and a day lost to sensory overload or a mental health dip.

But the impact goes far beyond receipts and bills. PIP gives me the breathing room to look after my mental health. It means I can attend my therapy appointments without having to choose between them and my electricity bill. It means I can say no to situations that would push me into crisis, because I am not financially forced to say yes. It means I can rest when I need to rest, instead of pushing my body and mind past the point of collapse and ending up worse off.

PIP also enables me to contribute. That part matters to me. Because I have this support, I can do the work I do: advocacy, storytelling, showing up for my community. I can hold down relationships. I can be a good friend, a present family member, a reliable colleague on the days I’m well. People often frame disability benefits as something that holds people back. For me, the truth is the opposite: PIP is what makes participation possible. It is the scaffolding that lets me show up in the world.

Living with a mental health condition alongside a disability means my needs shift. Some weeks I manage well. Other weeks, everything is harder. PIP gives me the stability to weather those shifts without falling off a cliff. It gives me dignity on my hardest days and independence on my best days. It means I don’t have to justify my existence every time my symptoms flare up.

This is the reality I want the review to understand. PIP isn’t just a payment – it is access. It is safety. It is the difference between being pushed to the edges of society and being able to take my place within it. When PIP works, it works quietly in the background, enabling people like me to build a better life. When it doesn’t, the consequences are serious – not just financially, but physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

That is why my voice, and the voices of others like me, need to be in this review.

Why Lived Experience Voices Are So Important

Lived experience is expertise. No one understands the impact of a policy better than the people who live with its consequences every day. When disabled people are at the centre of conversations about disability benefits, policy becomes sharper, fairer, and more effective. Decisions made without that expertise tend to miss the mark, creating systems that are harder to navigate, more stressful to engage with, and less responsive to real need.

Centering lived experience is also a matter of principle. “Nothing about us without us” should be the minimum standard. If the government is serious about improving PIP, then the people who rely on it must be genuinely heard, not just consulted as an afterthought.

What to Expect

The space will be rooted in lived experience storytelling, and offer different ways to contribute. Your insights will directly inform a collective lived experience response to the review.

Date: Tuesday 5 May

Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm

Location: Online (joining link will be sent once you confirm your place)

How to join: Please email issac@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk with any questions, or to confirm you’d like to attend, and we’ll send over the joining link and any final details.

If you have any access needs or would prefer to contribute in a different way, please just let us know. We’ll make sure the space works for you.

We are grateful to everyone who is showing up to share their story. Your voice will shape what we take to government – and that is exactly how it should be.

The team at People’s Voice Media are very excited about the prospect of working with Agora Koln in Cologne again. This project about civic participation is funded by the Cultural Bridge Fund which enables nonprofit organisations from the UK and Germany to connect by sharing knowledge and practice. 

Drawing on case studies from a revitalised neighbourhood public space in Cologne, Germany and a publicly owned community centre in Dalry, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, this project investigates the motivations and challenges experienced by individuals engaged in civic initiatives. By comparing these distinct contexts – urban and rural – the project seeks to identify shared values and generate insights into participation, belonging, and the impact of collective action.

The research will explore the factors motivating civic engagement, strategies for sustaining involvement, and the barriers participants face, with particular attention to interactions with local authorities.

It will give us a fabulous opportunity to continue our research into volunteering and dig deep into why civic participation matters to people.

We’ll use People’s Voice Media’s Community Reporting methods to train participants in how to collect stories from peers in an ethical and non-extractive way and share them digitally. They’ll interview individuals, record audio, take photos, and collaborate with those involved. Through online meetings, participants will share their findings and there will be a chance to meet in person when three delegates from each community will visit one another, tour the sites, and share their thoughts about their own experience of civic participation. During the year, this hybrid and international project will link both communities, amplify their voices, and demonstrate the impact of civic engagement on places and people.

The fund empowers ‘hands across the sea’ partnerships where together nonprofit organisations can co-produce, co-design, share skills, knowledge and practice. We are so excited to get started – watch this space for updates!

We have come to the end of the journey for our Amplifying Voices project, but as one participant so powerfully said, “this is not the destination, this is a stop on the journey.” Issac Samuels reflects on what the programme and its participants have achieved so far, and looks forward to the next steps.

From the very beginning, Amplifying Voices was more than just a programme. It was about creating space: space to be heard, to be seen, and to bring together racialised individuals committed to social justice and community change. Led by Isaac Samuels and Cecily Henry, the programme supported participants to develop their skills and knowledge in community reporting, while grounding their work in real-life issues affecting their communities.

Building a community of changemakers

We had over 70 applicants for the Amplifying Voices programme, which was a year-long journey of support for changemakers from Global Majority communities. The people taking part received training in digital storytelling, facilitation, and story curation, but crucially became part of a close-knit community – a diverse group of individuals united by a shared commitment to change. What stood out most was the sense of connection. Alongside their learning, the participants on Amplifying Voices supported each other, collaborated, and created lasting bonds that will continue far beyond the programme.

I came for the training, but I’m leaving with a community.

Rooted in real stories

The Amplifying Voices changemakers quickly put their new skills into action to support the causes that were important to them. Across the programme, participants led powerful grassroots projects tackling issues such as:

• Health inequalities within racialised communities
• Suicide prevention and mental health awareness
• Elevating the voices of carers from racialised backgrounds

Each project reflected lived experience, shaped by those closest to the challenges—and the solutions.

For the first time, I felt like my story wasn’t just valid – it was necessary.

Learning to amplify

Through the programme, participants developed practical skills in digital Community Reporting. These tools enabled them to:

• Change perceptions through storytelling
• Amplify messages that matter at a local level
• Build confidence in sharing their voices

As well as these valuable and effective strategies for change, what also emerged was a collective sense of purpose.

We’re not just telling stories. We’re shifting narratives that have been ignored for too long.

What we learned

This journey also highlighted important truths. Many racialised individuals are already doing vital work in their communities, but often without the support they need. This lack of support carries both emotional and practical impacts, making their work even more challenging.

We carry so much. Not just our work, but our communities. That weight isn’t always recognised.

For People’s Voice Media as an organisation, there was a lot of valuable learning too. The programme reinforced the importance of:

• Creating space for community care and wellbeing
• Recognising the emotional labour behind grassroots work
• Supporting individuals not just as changemakers, but as people

And perhaps most importantly, we learned that the path is not always easy.

Passion gets you started, but support is what keeps you going.

Looking ahead

While this chapter of Amplifying Voices is coming to a close, its impact continues. Rather than seeing this as an end point, we are using it as a moment to pause, reflect, and carry forward everything that has been built. The stories shared, the skills developed, and the connections formed will continue to grow, evolve, and shape what comes next.

Your thoughts

We’d love to hear from you:

• What does “amplifying voices” mean to you?
• How can we better support grassroots changemakers in our communities?
• What stories do you think still need to be heard?

This work was generously supported by The National Lottery Community Fund – thank you! You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

We were absolutely delighted to receive this update last week from our friends at The Equality Trust in Birmingham. People’s Voice Media have been working with the Equality Trust for the past few years to help them introduce lived experience storytelling into their work. We have trained members of the Equality Trust team so that they can deliver their own Community Reporter training. In just over 3 years, there have been a total 5 cohorts of Community Reporters, each looking at different topics focused on the realities of socio-economic inequality and aiming to impact the implementation of the Socio-economic Duty. The blog below explores the work of the most recent group of Birmingham Community Reporters, who began their project in August 2025. They recently held a workshop and film screening at the Midlands Arts Centre to share the insights they have learned from speaking to residents about their lived experiences of life in Birmingham. The event brought together residents, cultural leaders and artists to discuss how to reimagine “Brum without Barriers”. Senior Project Officer Charlie McNeill tells us more…

The Birmingham based Community Reporters on this Equality Trust project chose to look into how different experiences of accessing Arts, Culture, Entertainment and Recreation in the city can help us better understand the city’s changing landscape through a period of severe service cuts and loss of community assets, and how this impacts people from different socio-economic backgrounds.

They really wanted to be positive about the city and this was represented well in the finished film, whilst being pragmatic and honest about the challenges we are facing.

Our mobilisation event brought together some brilliant Brummies from across the city and its power spectrum, to reimagine a Brum without Barriers. We had a great day commiting to our own changes and the power we’re each going to step into to disrupt for a better city where everyone is included and able to enjoy the great wealth of culture we have to share. You can read more about the event on the Equality Trust blog.

Already this has created funding opportunities for arts activities in usually neglected parts of the city, potential for some new academic research, and has created connections between creatives to uplift queer and other marginalised voices on local community radio.

The Community Reporters Arash, Jennifer and Alev have really enjoyed their experience on this project. We’re just in the wrapping up stages now and I’m making sure they all have strong connections to People’s Voice Media and the wider Community Reporter network so that they can go on to grow their skills, connections and get involved in future projects should they wish to.

Arash, Jennifer and Alev have created a really special project capturing a really important time for our city, making some firm friendships along the way. We’re really proud of them and incredibly grateful to have had the chance to have worked with them.

We hope you enjoy the film and would love to hear what it makes you think about – Does it challenge your perceptions of Birmingham? Can you relate to any of the experiences expressed by the storytellers? What would you change in your neighbourhood to help folks feel more welcome in what’s on?