Deb McDonald

she/her

Deb joined the CoLab Dudley team in autumn 2024 following involvement in our network as a Time Rebel, and at the time, alongside being a collaborator in our work on Dudley People's School for Climate Justice. Deb has a background as an educator, and is a deeply compassionate weaver of community.

Deb has taken on the responsibility of animating our High Street lab space, curating inviting installations and exhibitions and helping the space to be more welcoming and accommodating for a diversity of needs.

Deb is the lead network weaver in relation to our bioregional learning work, supporting active members of our network while also spending time with people at our network edges so that knowledge spreads locally.

Role cards currently held by Deb

• Network Guardian
• Collective Imagination Steward
• Regenerative Futures Storyteller

Deb's CoLab Dudley role is around 2 days per week.

In relationship with place: born of this land

Deb is of this land. She says...

I was born in Dudley. My blood carries the DNA of the workers from farms to the fires and forges of the anvil strikers and glass workers of our Black Country heritage. It powers the pump of my heart where the green spaces live - Saltwells Nature Reserve, Warrens Hall fields, pools, rivers and canals. My ancestors lie scattered here like gems across a landscape once black by day and red by night, now transmuted into a green and grey tapestry where tendrils of resilience unfurl in pockets of hope, nourished by dreams of flourishing futures.