The journey from activist to a social change educator seemed a natural progression for Aidan. His campaign work dates back almost 30 years, including a 12-year commitment to the North East Forest Alliance. As an educational designer, Aidan merged these dual talents to ‘help train up other activists [so that] hundreds, possibly thousands, of campaigns may benefit.’

I wondered how the spawning of activists sat with SCU. ‘There is a clear answer to that. I work as a consultant and it is part of my community outreach to engage in community education. My area of expertise is activism, so I teach communities about such things as non-violent direct action.’

I questioned Aidan whether he ever consulted for a group whose aims he didn’t believe in. ‘What I am about is community empowerment and local participative democracy. It doesn’t matter if I agree or not with the issue that people might be fighting for. As long as it’s non-violent, and from a public interest rather than vested interest perspective, then that is the only outcome that I would expect from my training.’

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