FAN Club Profile, Sophie Manson, May 2009
Sophie Manson
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Name: Sophie Manson
When were you involved in People & Planet?
I started going along to Sheffield P&P meetings when I was in my second year at Uni, along with one of my friends because I was a bit shy and didn’t know much about the issues they were talking about. But we soon got totally addicted, made loads of friends, and we’re on the committee for the group! When I finished university I went to Oxford and worked in the support office as an intern for a year.
What are you doing now? How did you get there?
I’m living in Brussels, where I work for Friends of the Earth, coordinating Young Friends of the Earth Europe. We’re a very diverse, grassroots network of young people and youth groups from across Europe working together on environmental and social justice issues. My job involves organising events, actions and training to bring us all together, learn from each other, communicate about what we are doing in our local communities and countries, and to say what we think collectively and take action as European youth. It’s an amazing network to be a part of because I get to meet people from different cultures, backgrounds and ways of working and learn a huge amount about the issues, which are important and relevant to them at home. I’m about to take a 25hr train trip to Olso to work with Young FoE Norway who run a big resistance campaign against offshore oil drilling in the northern Lofoten Islands, for example.
At the moment, the focus of YFoEE’s work is on the UN climate talks this December in Copenhagen, and the negotiations of the international climate change agreement. We’re running quite a few issue and action training events to help young people understand the massive issues at stake and all of the different ways that they can get involved: from learning about lobbying politicians, blogging and making movies, making big and small actions, and loads more.
What inspired you to start campaigning?
I think it was when I was 6, I went on a school trip to a farm and then afterwards refused to eat the lamb chops my mum had made for dinner. I started lobbying all my friends and family to become vegetarian too. I realised that that every person can make a difference and that there is huge injustice in this world that needs to be fought against.
It was at Sheffield P&P that I started to meet other people who felt the same as me, and actually learnt that campaigning for change at the source of the problem, rather than simply giving money towards charity, made a lot of sense.
What impact has being involved with P&P?
So many! I owe P&P a lot for where I got to now which is why joining the FAN club is a small way that I can thank them for all that and still be a part of a great network. P&P is where I first heard about facilitation and consensus decision making, and was trained in how to use them, which are skills that now I could not imagine life without. I have also met so many super and inspiring people and made life-long friends across the country which keeps me going despite sometimes feeling overwhelmed.
Describe your most memorable P&P?
I can’t say- there are so many memorable experiences and things that I am proud off, from going to my first Shared Planet, training for a very painful half marathon to raise money for P&P, going to the G8 camp in Stirling in 2005, to getting 60 people along to our first freshers week P&P event- a forum for student, Sheffield councillors and university staff on recycling needs.
One of my first network activities was going along to the summer gathering and being there with about 20 people and learning loads of campaigning skills and that my local group was part of something much bigger and stronger. Then 3 years later, being back at the Summer Gathering, but this time as one of the facilitators, and being now amongst a group of 60 people from the network. It’s been nice to see P&P from so many angles and benefit from so many of the opportunities it offers us, and see it growing and involving new people.
What issue keeps you awake at night?
The climate crisis and the absolute injustice that it is the poorest and most vulnerable people in our world who are already feeling the effects of climate change and our ridiculous over-consumption in the west.
I find the inaction and lack of responsibility that developed countries like ours are taking shameful, and the false solutions that they are proposing like clean coal and carbon offsetting a waste of our precious time.
What are your ambitions for the future?
I always tell people that I would be really happy if I could just go back to university to join a P&P group again! Being a student activist was so inspiring and is a very effective place to be and make change, so I still miss it. Other than that, I’m looking forward to working on building the international young friends of the earth network, and linking up young people from all over the world to demand justice.
