How can we make sense of a world where we have both too many billionaires and too many foodbanks? The expected path of many is to go to university, forge a career, get wealthier, buy a house – but why is that so hard for most of us to achieve? Now during the pandemic, the divides are being even more revealed as some can comfortably self-isolate with ongoing income while others are locked down in cramped conditions facing starvation as food banks close down. Many others are experiencing the inadequacy and delays of the universal benefit system for the first time.
Ben Tippet will seek to make sense of our world by looking at class society – delving into the deep-rooted economic inequalities that shape our lives. From the gig economy, rising debt and the housing crisis that affects the majority of people, to the world of tax havens and unfair inheritance that affect the few… He will propose that now is the time to fight back against the 1% as awareness of this inequality is painfully showing itself. Wanda Wyporska will provide a response from a campaigning perspective.
The webinar be designed to be highly interactive and engaging even if we can’t offer wine!
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Ben Tippet is an educator, activist, and writer. He is currently doing a PhD at the University of Greenwich, researching the causes of wealth inequality in the UK. He is a researcher for The Transnational Institute and has written for Novara, Stike! and Economy. He is author of Split, part of Pluto Press’ new Outspoken series: a series of punchy, passionate politics books, written by young people for young people.
Dr Wanda Wyporska, FRSA, is Executive Director at The Equality Trust, the national charity that campaigns to reduce social and economic inequality. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of York, a trustee of ACEVO (Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations), Redthread Youth, and Equally Ours and Governor of a primary school. She is a regular keynote speaker and sits on or has advised a range of bodies, such as the ACEVO race advisory panel, the Fight Inequality Alliance Steering Group, the Sheila McKechnie Foundation Social Power review, NUS Poverty Commission and the Sex Education Forum Advisory Group.
Wanda has over a decade of experience working in the trade union movement, leading on equalities, social mobility and education policy and is an experienced campaigner. She is a TEDx speaker, has spoken at the United Nations, York Festival of Ideas, and chaired a panel at the Women of the World Festival. She regularly comments in the media, having appeared on Newsnight, BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze, Sky News, and BBC 1’s The Big Questions, adn written for The Guardian, HuffPo, and The Independent among other outlets.
Wanda was a Starun Senior Scholar at Hertford College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate in European History and subsequently published her first book, Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland 1500-1800 in 2013. It was shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award.