Sarah P Corbett

Catch Sarah Corbett on Do Radio: Where To Next? Dan Kieran 17th - 23rd August 2026.

Sarah Corbett is an award-winning activist, Ashoka Fellow and founder of the global Craftivist Collective.

She is best known for pioneering "Gentle Protest," a form of craftivism that combines neuroscience, positive psychology and campaign strategy with hand-embroidery and papercraft.

Her approach has helped change laws, policies and hearts and minds, from persuading Marks & Spencer to pay the Living Wage to 50,000 staff, to holding politicians accountable on mental health with Mind.

She received an Honorary Fellowship from Goldsmiths, University of London for her contribution to design activism, and her TEDx talk, "Activism Needs Introverts," was named a TED Talk of the Day.

At the heart of Sarah's work is a conviction that meaningful change comes not from polarisation, anger or ego, but from slow, quiet, strategic engagement: treating decision-makers as critical friends rather than enemies, and building the kind of respectful relationships that let people change their own minds. Central to this is what she calls the empowerment dynamic, learned during a two-year fellowship for change-makers, which reframes activism away from victim, rescuer and perpetrator roles and towards creating, coaching and challenging with compassion.

In conversation with Dan at the Realisation Festival, Sarah explores the two adulthoods, the danger of burnout in activism, the practice of family constellations, and why gentle protest, done well, is never passive: it is a disciplined, soft form of power that trusts people to be part of the solution rather than the enemy to be defeated.

I Am not Creative with Siobhan Sheridan