BACKGROUND

Workshops

The research and inspiration behind Our Public House began in Spring 2023 with our Speak Out! Workshops across the country.

With our partners, Birmingham University and the University of East Anglia, since then, we’ve empowered over 600 people to write and deliver speeches about what we can change today that will make the future better. We've worked with diverse communities across England - including schools, women’s prisons, women’s and men’s social groups, political activists and deaf communities, in Cornwall, Sheffield, Manchester, Banbury, Corby, Peterborough, Coventry, Norwich, Brighton and London.

In the workshops, we supported participants in crafting and delivering powerful impactful speeches. The speeches were brilliantly diverse, ranging from a campaign for mushrooms campaigns, to increasing universal credit and rent controls, easy access to music lessons, improved special needs education and employer recognition of menopause. Their speeches provoked, persuaded and empowered. We’re still running workshops and alongside them, we’re creating a play inspired by all the people and speches we’ve met and heard.

At a series of live events in Manchester and London, we brought together our workshop participants alongside activists, academics, politicians to present and explore speech-making's ability to provoke, persuade and empower.

“You leave feeling a connection to the community and empowered by the knowledge that speech can truly be one of the greatest tools society can unlock.” - A Young(ish) Perspective

Events included cultural historian Edith Hall, playwright Alecky Blythe, former speechwriter to David Cameron, Jessica Cunniffe, comedian Rinkoo Barpaga, youth worker and community activist Zara Manoehoetoe.