Neighbourhood Action Coordinator

The role will lead on Pembroke House’s Neighbourhood Action projects to grow the number of residents taking collective action on local issues in their neighbourhood. Increase resident engagement across all Walworth Living Room and Pembroke House activities.

Day-to-day you’ll be working across a range of Pembroke House programmes and neighbourhood projects, working closely with residents, local organisations and team members to form relationships which build towards action. A knowledge of community organising methodology (see for example Community Organisers, Act Build Change or Citizen’s UK) would be beneficial, but not essential, as there will also be other approaches or experiences that you could draw on for this role.

Whatever your approach, you will need to adapt the way you work for different parts of the work - from taking a strong and confident lead in running a door-knocking campaign, to working with other team members to support wider engagement for their programmes.

If this job is done well, a range of groups in Walworth will be taking meaningful action to make a difference to the neighbourhood. Individuals will be growing their skills and capacity to collaborate, the groups will be building momentum, and beginning to affect real change in the neighbourhood.

Pembroke House is a centre for social action and residential community in Walworth, south-east London. We were founded in 1885, by students from Pembroke College, Cambridge, as one of the first settlement houses. Shocked by growing poverty and inequality, the pioneers of the settlement movement sought a new approach: taking up residence to live, work and solve problems alongside local communities. We continue to share a building with St Christopher’s church, which has its routes in the same student settlement. For over 130 years, we’ve been working to bridge traditional divides and unite people – whatever their background or walk of life – in building a better Walworth.

Over the last 8-10 years at Pembroke House we have worked in a variety of ways to try to make a positive difference to our neighbourhood, from community organising on the estates around Pembroke House, building relationships with local TRAs (tenants and residents associations) and forging links with other organisations with a community organising ethos such as Citizens UK, Parent Action Southwark, and English for Action. We’ve also worked to build partnerships, from the ambitious mass engagement strategies of We Walworth, local collaborations for the Walworth Group, the Covid-19 Emergency Food Hub and the Neighbourhood Food Model. What unites these initiatives is a belief that our role is to support collective action that creates meaningful and lasting change within the neighbourhood.

This role requires someone who can build on this legacy, with the sensitivity to adapt different strategies to different situations, and motivate and support others to drive forward action. This is a new role within the organisation.