citizens uk
London
Founded in 1989, we are a single organisation with seventeen Chapters across
England and Wales. Our Chapters are led by local people acting together for the
common good through the method of Community Organising. The UK has a rich
history of people organising for power and change such as the Levellers, the
Abolitionists, the Chartists, early trade unionists like the match girls and
dock strikers, and the Suffragettes. Our work at Citizens UK is influenced by a
heritage which draws on the broad-based organising of our sister organisation,
the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) and before that the US civil rights
movement. Over the last thirty years we have won £1.8bn in additional wages for
low paid workers, ended child detention for immigration purposes, secured an
amnesty of ‘legacy cases’ for 160,000 asylum applicants as well as winning many
victories at the local and regional level. We build power with people so that
together we can move from the world as it is toward the world as it should be.
Some of our campaigns have spun off into dedicated projects, to create long-term
change. The largest and most successful of these teams is the Living Wage
Foundation which now accredits a network of over 9,000 employers who pay 300,000
employees the real Living Wage. Others include Parents and Communities Together
(PACT) and Sponsor Refugees. We are proud of other social innovations that have
successfully spun out to become independent organisations such as Safe Passage,
London Community Land Trust and Money Mentors.
