Angeles
A record of listening
Every person in these projects had something worth saying. Most of them had never been asked.
Across twenty-five years in many countries, I have found people who existed outside the frame of what their society considered worth listening to. I have given them a form, a platform, and a witness. This is not a service I invented. It is what I have always done, without even noticing what I was doing.
I was mugged by a drugged young man with a gun once. We ended up having a 45-minute conversation in which he shared about his life and I, about mine. I was a volunteer for the Big Issue and he got curious when I offered him a job if he surrendered the gun. He ended up giving me back my mobile, so that he could call me if he decided to accept my offer to accompany him to get into a drug-recovery programme. He never called. He had said he would only do it if he had gotten rid of his gun first.
Some voices
I found a woman who raised 90,000 euros for children during a foreign national crisis and was entirely invisible. I found a sociologist who had 68,000 people wanting to read her. Only circumstances kept them in the dark. I did what I could to make them seen.
This is my vocation: being curious about and conversing with people, then giving a platform to those stories that I think matter to build the world I want my daughter to live in.
What colleagues have said
Anna Nayyar, Associate Director, Britain Thinks
"Angeles has been the most formidable force driving the equality movement - both in research and in digital campaigning."
Anna Peters, Director, Stripe Partners:
"I have learnt a lot from her on the importance of true community: her community-minded spirit comes through in both the way that she treats the online communities that she manages, and in the way that she treats her colleagues."
Jens Middel, Owner, Schrijf-Schrijf, Utrecht:
"Once she finds out the person or company she works for is dedicated to do its bit to improve the world and help others, a fire lights up in her."