Ruth Marshall is Co-Manager and Youth & Community Organiser at Together Creating Communities (TCC), a North-East Wales charity with 30 years’ experience in community organising and 40 member groups. Ruth’s work focuses on empowering communities to shape the systems that affect them, building participatory infrastructures that enable collective action on housing, climate, education, and socio-economic justice. Her approach centres on mentoring, training, and youth-led projects, ensuring that lived experience drives solutions and that young people have equal power alongside adults in decision-making.
At TCC, Ruth supports community members to identify priorities, develop leadership skills, and engage with power holders through assemblies, workshops, and campaigns. A key example is the No Hungry Learners campaign, where students advocated to prevent children being denied hot meals due to school dinner debt, influencing local policy and feeding into broader anti-poverty strategies in Wrexham. The organisation also collaborates with faith groups, schools, and grassroots organisations to address systemic issues, fostering cross-generational and cross-sector engagement.
Ruth’s practice is grounded in care, transparency, and shared power. She applies a trauma-informed approach to events and campaigns, prioritising psychological safety for young people and neurodiverse teams, while embedding equity, safeguarding, and accessible participation in all processes.
Through the Practice-Builders’ Network, Ruth aims to share TCC’s experience in mentoring, youth-led organising, and inclusive community infrastructure, while learning from peers about sustaining momentum, avoiding burnout, and scaling impact without losing relational depth. Her contribution emphasises ethical, participatory, and practical strategies for building a joined-up, sustainable, and socially just future.