Julie Thorpe

Julie has many years’ experience working in the labour and co-operative movement and is strongly committed to the values of mutualism and solidarity. She enjoys bringing creative and engaging approaches to any challenge and helping empower others to find their own solutions.

Her working life began in a worker’s co-operative running a local weekly newspaper where she developed her writing and editing skills. She went on to undertake a range of project management, training, curriculum development and governance roles. These have included a number of positions the UK Co-operative College working on international development, governance, and the development of co-operative schools.

Julie has a passion for co-operative pedagogy that she reflects in her training style – using highly interactive approaches to ensure that all participants can fully engage.  She enjoys working with learners from a wide variety of backgrounds from school children to adults in more or less formal settings. Her training interests include leadership, governance, human rights, gender and equalities issues.

Most recently Julie led a series of trainings in equal opportunities for worker representatives at a large garment manufacturer in Mauritius within the context of a broad-ranging Just Solutions development program.

Julie has a range of professional qualifications including the Award in Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector;  Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement; PRINCE2 Practitioner and an MA in Interactive Multimedia Production. She posesses excellent ICT and digital competencies including website and interactive media design, along with editorial and graphics skills.

Julie likes to spend most of her free time outdoors and enjoys gardening and running a small-holding with a small menagerie of animals! She also has interests in cooking, reading, painting, pottery and other crafts.