Helen Barnard, Director of Policy, Research and Impact, Trussell
At the start of 2025 I was deeply honoured to be given an honorary doctorate by the University of York, and to be asked to give a speech at the graduation ceremony. I thought about the hall full of bright, dedicated students receiving their degrees that day and reflected on what I could most usefully share with them as they prepared to take the next step on their journey and go from York out into the world.
I’ve worked to tackle poverty and promote social justice for decades, and I’ve never seen such a combination of challenges as we face today. Deep, engrained poverty. Social and political polarisation. Misinformation. Climate change. International instability and conflict.
It’s clear we need every ounce of the skills, expertise and wisdom gained by students at York and across the country to solve the problems we’re facing here in the UK and around the world.
I wanted to share three lessons I’ve learned over the years of trying to drive change and improve lives.
First: Pick your battles.
My father said that to me all through my childhood and teenage years, and it took me far too long to understand how important it is. You can’t fight everyone about everything all the time. Pick the things that really matter to you, and let the rest go. It’s the only way to achieve anything and avoid burnout.
Second: You can disagree passionately with people, without thinking they’re evil or seeing them as the enemy.
Some of the most impressive and kindest people I’ve worked with have totally different views to me about almost everything. And I can think they’re wrong about issues that matter deeply to us both, whilst both liking and respecting them.
Third: to achieve change you can’t just talk to the people who already agree with you.
Successful campaigns reach out to people who have different views, who aren’t already convinced. To create real, systematic and sustainable change, requires a ‘big tent’ approach – gathering people together, reaching across ideological lines, to create a movement that’s broad and unstoppable. The people in that movement don’t have to agree with each other on every topic in order to work together. I worry that some social justice movements seem to apply more and more stringent ‘purity tests’, demanding people have the same views on every issue to be seen as an ally. That’s a recipe for division and alienating the people who need to buy into and support change.
So, my advice to those proud and excited students as they left the hall was this:
- Pick a battle you really care about.
- Grow a movement that’s as broad and diverse as possible.
- Seek out people who disagree and genuinely listen to them – even if their view is totally opposite, they may well have ideas and insights you need in order to succeed.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies or views of the University of York