About

Growing locally led, Community Owned Businesses

Owned by Oxford is all about redirecting wealth back into the local economy, under community control and for community benefit.

Owned by Oxford is a partnership between African Families in the UK, Aspire, CAG Oxfordshire, Oxford Community Action, Oxford City Council, Makespace Oxford, Mothers 4 Justice Ubuntu, Solidarity Economy Association, Syrian Sisters and Damascus Rose Kitchen, Transition Lighthouse and Cooperative Futures.

We are using grass-roots Community Wealth Building to address our City’s inequality.

Community Wealth Building is a people centred approach to local economic development. It reorganises local economies to be fairer. It stops wealth flowing out of our communities, towns and cities. Instead, it places control of this wealth into the hands of local people.

Find out more about Community Wealth Building

At Owned by Oxford, we support locally led, community owned businesses that meet local needs and tackle Oxford’s inequalities.

We do this by integrating community led economic development with the purchasing power and assets of larger organisations. We have an Assets Based Community Development approach, the focus is on relationship building and authentic community engagement.

Our Oxford communities are already buzzing with ideas, skills and passion. Owned by Oxford is all about being led by the community – so we go where the energy is. We’re collaborating with a range of grass-roots projects, bringing investment, resources and development support where needed. We’re really excited by cooperative business models and growing the coop sector in Oxford.

Right now we are supporting enterprises in Blackbird Leys and Barton and those led by Black and Minoritised communities. The projects are all different – ranging from a pop-up market to a home energy retrofit project – but they all share some common commitments to be:

community owned and community run
delivering local solutions for local issues
regenerative businesses that respect and benefit the environment
creating good jobs paid at the Oxford Living Wage

Meet the team

Anaïs Bozetine (she/her), Owned by Oxford Co-Coordinator

Anaïs works for Community Action Groups Oxfordshire and co-coordinates the Owned by Oxford partnership . If you have any questions, get in touch with her: anais@cagoxfordshire.org.uk

Nigel Carter, Owned by Oxford Co-Coordinator and Development Worker

Nigel is a researcher and a co-founder of Oxford Community Action (OCA), a Multi-Ethnic community-based network which is part of the Owned by Oxford Initiative. His role is focussed on building OCA’s capacity and their support for new, community enterprise ideas. In February 2024, he joined Jacqui and Anaïs in co-coordinating the Owned by Oxford partnership.

info@oxfordcommunityaction.org

Jacqui Gitau, Owned by Oxford Co-Coordinator and Development Worker

Jacqui is the Director and co-founder of African Families in the UK (AFiUK), supporting families of African and other ethnic minority origin. Part of the Owned by Oxford initiative, Jacqui and her AFiUK colleagues mentor and incubate community businesses. In February 2024, she joined Nigel and Anaïs in co-coordinating the Owned by Oxford partnership.

jacqui.gitau@afiuk.org

Jabu Nala-Hartley, Communities Advocate

Jabu is an ambassador for Community Wealth Building in the city. Her focus is on relationship building, advocacy and support for grassroots and community enterprises across the City with a particular focus on the Barton area.

Jabu@cagoxfordshire.org.uk

Alice Hemming, Co-operative Development

Alice is a Co-operative Development Worker at Co-operative Futures. Alice offers start-up support for new community businesses and co-operatives, as well as facilitating networking and peer-learning for the co-operative sector. Based in Oxford, Alice has been involved in a number of co-ops and community businesses over the past 7 years.

alice.hemming@futures.coop