Our Story
Our member organisations are all rooted in the OX4 postcode of Oxford.
We first came together in 2020 during the pandemic to meet urgent needs in our communities. The alliance began as an informal peer-support network for grassroots community organisations to share resources, navigate challenges, and do more for our communities with the little that we had.
Despite Oxford’s reputation for wealth and prestige, OX4 is home to some of the highest levels of poverty, housing insecurity, and health inequality in the country - with life expectancy up to 15 years lower in some OX4 neighbourhoods than in the city’s wealthiest areas.
Yet OX4 is also one of the most diverse and vibrant parts of Oxford, with a long and proud history of community organising, mutual aid, and grassroots leadership.
Many of our groups have emerged from decades of community action organised by local people to meet needs in our neighbourhoods long overlooked by mainstream institutions.
Today, deepening inequality, the spiralling cost-of-living crisis, and intensifying 'hostile environment' immigration policies mean even more people in our communities are facing hunger, hardship, and exclusion - making our collective work more urgent than ever.
Too often, it is our elders, disabled people, black and minoritised communities, migrants, pregnant women, and low-income families who are hit hardest. People are going without food because of unfair systems and political choices they’ve had no say in.
This is why we aim for food justice - which means shifting power and redistributing resources - so that communities can shape the systems that affect their lives - and regain their ability to access the basics of life.
