Faith and Empowerment 2025

Join us at St Paul's for a series of conversations on how Christian faith has inspired people to work for the empowerment of others. Seasoned practitioners, all based in Cambridge, share their stories of how faith has inspired them to work for empowerment in diverse contexts at home and abroad.

When?

4th, 18th, 25th May and 1st, 8th and 15th June.

6.00-7.00pm, St Paul’s Anglican Church, Hills Road (corner of St Paul’s Road). CB2 1JP

What?

Speakers will offer 30 minutes input and there will be 30 minutes of open discussion. Refreshments to follow. The series is open to all. It is sponsored by the Inclusive Church Group at St Paul’s and follows a series in 2024 on Inclusive Theology. The talks will be live streamed.

4 May Empowerment through peacemaking - Ruby Quantson Davis

Ruby is Senior Learning and Impact Advisor at Peace Direct and has  20 years’ global experience in public policy research and advocacy, deliberative conversations, community engagement and institutional development. With an MA in International Affairs and BA in French and Linguistics, from the University of Ghana, she specialises in strengthening capacity for conflict prevention and peace processes, in places of political polarization, religious differences, ethnic, racial and gender divides. She has worked extensively within Africa and the South Pacific, Israel and the United States.

11 May – no session

18 May Empowerment through development - Philip Powell

Philip is Theologian at the global development agency Tearfund. He has an MA in Politics and International Relations, and advocacy experience at the United Nations, EU and UK Parliament, and within the international NGO sector. Born and raised in India, he moved to the UK in 1998. He has visited over 30 countries and every continent, speaking on issues of global justice, development, human rights, theology, social ethics and intercultural studies, and authored research and policy papers on global justice. He is passionate about human rights and the struggle to achieve a more just and peaceful international order that will benefit the poor.

25 May Empowerment through welfare policy – Coco Huggins

Coco is a doctoral research student at Cambridge University, based at the Department of Geography. Her research examines the values, morals and ideologies which influence attitudes towards UK benefit policy across the political spectrum. She was seconded to the Department for Work and Pensions in 2023 and is the chapel warden of Pembroke College, Cambridge. 

1 June Empowerment through education - Alistair Mack

Alistair is Deputy Chair of Trustees at Windle Trust International. He has a BA in History (Sheffield), an MA in War Studies (KCL), and a MPhil and PGCE (York). He was a teacher before serving in the army 1986-2019 as an education and training specialist with a secondary competency in Civil Military Cooperation. He worked in 40+ countries alongside an array of Armed Forces, UN Agencies and Organisations, International Ministries and INGOs. Married with grown up children and 3 grandchildren, Alistair is an avid rugby fan, an Amnesty International volunteer and a Trustee for Windle Trust International.

8 June Empowerment through interfaith dialogue – Dr Elizabeth Phillips

Elizabeth is Director of Education and Engagement at the Woolf Institute. She specialises in Christian moral and political theologies, interfaith relations, and conflict transformation. She is a former Lecturer in Christian Ethics at Westcott House and Research Fellow with the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology. She is author of Political Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum, 2012), and co-editor of T&T Clark Reader in Political Theology (2021), and The Cambridge Companion to Political Theology (2015).

15 June Empowerment through citizenship – Cheney Payne

Cheney is a Cambridge City councillor (Castle ward). She graduated in theology from Cambridge in 2010, has 12 years’ experience of classroom teaching and is now Assistant Principal of Ernulf Academy, St Neots. She has been a Cambridge City councillor since 2018. She has led campaigns on a range of issues, including the "Ask for Angela" scheme which offers a safe route home for people feeling threatened at night, and the campaign for Cambridge to offer sanctuary for refugees from all over the world.