Big Issue’s 100 Changemakers of 2026: Communities and equality
Meet our 2026 Changemakers. Here Big Issue celebrate community groups working at grassroots level to make sure everyone feels seen, supported and welcome
by:
16 Feb 2026
Kim Perlow of LINKUP London. Image: Alexandra Vanotti
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When community groups come together to advocate for each other they become an unstoppable force for good. These people are working at grassroots level to make sure everyone feels seen, supported and welcome.
Every year Big Issue compiles a list of 100 organisations and people who are bringing change to their community. It’s a chance to celebrate the agenda-setting activists and grassroots groundbreakers delivering change.
Headhere to see the full Big Issue 100 Changemakers list
The Bevy Community Pub
The Bevy is the UK’s only community-owned pub on a council estate, and a powerful example of grassroots action. When their local pub closed in 2010, residents in Moulsecoomb, East Sussex, refused to let another community space disappear. They raised funds, secured grants and reopened it as a cooperative owned by local people. Today, The Bevy is far more than a pub: it runs kids’ clubs, seniors’ lunches, dementia-friendly music sessions and inclusive disability discos. In a region where services were gutted by austerity, it’s become a lifeline; a place where profits are reinvested and everyone belongs.
Valerie Lolomari
Valerie Lolomari
Lolomari is the founder of Women of Grace, a survivor-led organisation supporting women affected by FGM. Through safe spaces and peer counselling, it has supported more than 168 survivors across the UK, helping women recover and rebuild their lives. Lolomari (below) also leads prevention and education work, delivering workshops in schools across London, Essex and Cambridgeshire to challenge harmful beliefs and promote children’s right to bodily autonomy. Her work has been recognised with an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Suffolk, and she has spoken at the United Nations.
Maxine Cockett
Maxine Cockett
Cockett has spent nearly five decades serving Nottingham’s communities, starting out as a volunteer at her local youth club age 15. She has worked across youth and community development roles with Nottingham City and County Council, and later became Founder and CEO of Breaking Barriers Building Bridges (BBBB), a youth organisation in the city. Through mentoring, women’s programmes, youth provision and street-based outreach, Cockett and her team engage around 1,100 young people each week in Nottingham city centre, helping prevent harm and reduce conflict.
Hameeda Khan-Davey
Hameeda Khan-Davey
The Founder and CEO of PEP Enterprise, Khan-Davey (above) has spent more than 15 years supporting global ethnic majority women through tailored training, guidance and leadership opportunities. Based in Lancashire, Hameeda combines lived experience with public advocacy, using her platform to challenge racism and inequality and to push for meaningful action on equity. She has written for Big Issue and is part of the Sounddelivery Media Spokesperson Network, helping bring community voices into public conversation. Through her work, Hameeda creates space for underrepresented people to be heard, supported and empowered.
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Kairos WWT
Founded in 1999, Kairos WWT supports marginalised women in Coventry, particularly those who are experiencing or at risk of sexual exploitation. Many of the women Kairos works alongside face multiple and overlapping challenges, including homelessness, drug use and destitution, and can be missed by services that do not fit their needs. Kairos takes a trauma-informed approach, meeting women where they are and welcoming them into a safe base designed to offer calm, dignity and practical support.
Community Savers
Community Savers is a pioneering network of women-led neighbourhood associations in Manchester and Sheffield. Established in 2020, it is built on a poverty reduction approach developed by Shack/Slum Dwellers International, supporting women to organise around savings and strengthen financial resilience from the household upwards. Community Savers has seven affiliated groups and neighbourhood forums in Manchester, and in 2024 supported a new group to establish in Sheffield. Working in areas among the most deprived in England, the network helps residents build confidence, create local leadership, and take collective action for social, economic and climate justice.
Since founding Link UP London in 2016, Perlow has connected professional skills with grassroots need through a model of skilled volunteering that strengthens charities from the inside out. Based in London, Link UP operates across boroughs including Lambeth, Wandsworth and Southwark, helping organisations meet rising demand at a time of stretched resources and funding pressure. With more than two decades of experience across the charity, not-for-profit and international development sectors, Perlow brings a collaborative approach rooted in practical action, building partnerships that make communities more resilient and better supported.
Charlotte McKeown, Skipton Step Into Action
Skipton Step Into Action
McKeown is the founder of Skipton Step Into Action, a grassroots community response launched in March 2020 that has since become a registered charity and trusted local lifeline in Skipton, North Yorkshire. For more than five years, she has led practical support for residents facing isolation or crisis, mobilising volunteers and connecting people with help when they don’t know where to turn. Known for calm, down-to-earth leadership, McKeown’s approach is to listen first, act with compassion and make people feel valued. Her aim is to ensure no one in Skipton feels forgotten.
Samantha Billingham
Samantha Billingham. Image: Teresa Gregory
An advocate for survivors of domestic abuse, Billingham (right) works to raise awareness of domestic violence and coercive control across the West Midlands and beyond. She founded Survivors of Domestic Abuse (SODA) as a peer network offering support through signposting and community connection, alongside practical help such as emergency bags for survivors and children. In 2023, Billingham launched Stronger Beginnings, building partnerships across health services, local government and local businesses. She has developed an ABC framework for employers and is engaging with decision-makers to explore links between domestic abuse and harm to pets.
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Musa Sharples
Musa Sharples
Sharples is co-founder and director of Transilience, a grassroots youth-led organisation supporting trans young people and families across Devon. After coming out as trans at 13 and moving schools, Sharples began building community with other trans youth and made this work his focus in 2023. Co-founded with his mum, Transilience provides direct support and runs youth-led training for organisations working with young people. The organisation has reached an estimated 3,000 people and helps create safer spaces, stronger understanding and greater visibility.
I honestly think being listed as a Changemaker for Big Issue was one of those. As someone who advocates for trans rights and equality, we don’t often get acknowledged for the work we do, especially now when society is so hostile towards us. At the moment I am working on a book about trans survivors, where I highlight the challenges faced by trans women who have faced sexual abuse. In the current debate, it feels more poignant than ever to correct the narrative we see in the media, and help people understand our experiences better.
What did it mean to be named a Big Issue Changemaker?
Even though I am certainly not doing it for acknowledgement, it still does feel good to get that validation that you are making an impact, and that people can see it. It has definitely helped propel me forward, and continue fighting on.
What are your hopes for 2026?
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My hope is that 2026 is when people find empathy again. That it’s the year that people remember our shared humanity, and where we start to heal. I think right now there is so much pain, so much aggression and so much hate. It’s like people have forgotten to see others as people, and have fallen into a bitter culture war that strips people of humanity. It’s hugely worrying, and the direction we are heading won’t be good for anyone, least of all minorities and people who have struggled for liberation. Empathy is the most potent superpower we have as people, and we have to remember to exercise it. We’ve all seen where history leads when it’s forgotten.
