Mission Statement

SpokesPerson CIC was founded on the mission to make cycling more accessible to marginalised people and get marginalised people into cycling within Cardiff and South Wales. 

SpokesPerson holds the following values: 

SpokesPerson aims to work against racism, transphobia, homophobia, fatphobia, ableism, sexism, and classism within cycling, and as barriers to cycling. We individually hold ourselves to be explicitly anti-racist, anti-transphobic, anti-homophobic, anti-fatphobic, anti-ableist, anti-sexist, and anti-classist. 

We believe in providing resources for individuals and communities that can change their material circumstances, provide better quality of life, and meet their self-identified needs. As a Community Interest Company, we do not want to extract value from the community to match our own interests, nor provide charity, which would expect a certain circumstance, attitude, or response from the recipients of our work and create a hierarchy between us, the people doing the work, and the service users. Instead, we recognise the needs of communities through engaging with them, sharing many of their identities and concerns, and coming up with mutually agreed solutions that can be adapted to meet changing needs. 

We believe that people can support and be responsible for themselves to the degree that they have the resources to do so, and that we can work against the structural inequalities that make these resources unequally distributed across races, genders, sexualities, ages, locations, and abilities. Specifically, we know that we live in a white supremacist society that has favoured white people for centuries, while oppressing and neglecting Black, Asian, Latinx, Indigenous, Minority Ethnic people, and people of colour generally, meaning those whose skin colour, culture, and material circumstances racialise them within Wales. We know that we live in a misogynist and sexist society that prioritises cisgender men, putting women and queer people of colour in an especially marginalised position. We also know that our society is classist (built upon making the poor poorer and the rich richer), ableist (neglecting and working against people with disabilities and mental illness, prioritising working and living systems that favour certain abilities), cisheterosexist (existing within a gender binary that criminalises, ignores, and hurts trans and nonbinary people, as well as all LGBTQIA+ people), and fatphobic (prioritising thin bodies, providing lower quality care and support for fat people, and demonising fat bodies). 

We recognise the intersections and stacking of these marginalisations that make it more difficult for certain people to enter cycling, in direct and indirect ways. We know that we do not and cannot experience all these circumstances, and we believe it is our goal to listen and learn from a wide range of people whose identities are marginalised, evolving as their needs change. 

We believe that environmental changes are directly engaged with and impacting these systems of power and oppression. SpokesPerson aims to be environmentally responsible, and encourage others to do the same within the framework of their personal circumstances. We believe that environmental justice is racial, gender, disability, and class justice, and we recognise the way that fights for environmental justice have neglected these issues. We aim for our environmental concern to work in conversation with our fight against systems of oppression. 

We value continued learning, growth, and change as different needs become apparent to us. We do not believe that we will ever be “experts,” or in a hierarchy of knowledge or ability. We do not believe in hoarding or excluding knowledge that could improve people’s lives, and instead believe in our resources being shared, widely available, and always expanding. We believe we have lots to learn from those with varying experiences, knowledge, and perspectives to us, and intend to continue that learning with respect and mutual gain.

We expect these values to change and evolve as we practice our work, and will be reviewing this document regularly. We hold ourselves to these values and practice reflection and review to ensure we are living up to these values.