Sara Bryson
Community Organiser, Tyne & Wear Citizens, Citizens UKSara Bryson is the Community Organiser for the newly formed Tyne & Wear Citizens. Citizens UK organises communities to act together for power, social justice and the common good. Launched by Citizens UK in 2001, the Living Wage campaign has won over £210 million of additional wages, lifting over 70,000 families out of working poverty.
Sara has worked with children, young people and communities to ensure their views and experiences inform policy, practice and research for over 15 years - both regionally and nationally within Sure Start Children’s Centres, Children’s Fund, The Children’s Society and the Office for the Children’s Commissioner for England.
As the Policy & Research Manager at the regional children’s charity Children North East, Sara led on the child poverty programme of work. Developing ‘Poverty Proofing the School Day,’ a nationally celebrated programme to remove barriers to learning for disadvantaged pupils; managing Community Action on Poverty, community led solutions to poverty at a neighbourhood level; and coordinating Poverty Ends Now (PEN), a youth led initiative to tackle child poverty. PEN developed a children’s manifesto on poverty for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty. Sara was born and raised in the west end of Newcastle and studied at the London School of Economics. She is a 2016 (North East Specialist) Clore Social Leadership Fellow.