The work
BEGINS!

Hi, I'm Rob - — educator, strategist, writer, and Praxis Lead at SPACE (Social Praxis and Community Enterprise) in Hertfordshire.

SPACE is a bold grassroots response to youth empowerment, social equity, and community-led infrastructure.

I've spent over a decade innovating within Higher Education and public-sector workforce development—leading complex bids, designing national projects, and reshaping apprenticeship programmes to empower individuals and strengthen systems. But my heart remains rooted at street level, where real conversations spark genuine change.

 

SPACE is both a homecoming and a future-facing leap: honouring my mother’s legacy as a youth worker, my early years developing communities through pub management, and my extensive experience in policy, strategy, and educational innovation. At its core, SPACE is an intergenerational ecosystem built for my children and those like them—powered by community activism, mentorship, and collective social intelligence.

 

 

PROJECTS.

I design systems that turn lived experience into leadership pathways—where survival becomes strategy, and young people become the change-makers their communities need. 

LotBO

Liturgy of the Burnt Out is a creative and reflective project that gives voice to those exhausted by systems that extract more than they restore. Blending autobiographical writing, social critique, and the rhythm of gospel, LotBO explores the emotional and spiritual cost of survival in institutions not built for everyone. It’s a call-and-response for the weary — part manifesto, part musical lament, part field note from the edge of burnout.

Through poetic essays, cultural references, and deeply personal storytelling, LotBO holds space for healing without letting go of critique. It’s not about recovery in the neoliberal sense — but about reckoning, rehumanising, and reclaiming language, purpose, and power. Born from lived experience, it underpins Rob’s broader ecosystem work by grounding strategy in soul.

Social Capital '26

Social Capital is a transformative Level 3 youth leadership programme that uses the tools of business administration to build community leaders, not just competent employees.

It turns the real-life experiences of young people navigating risk, inequality, and systemic barriers into a curriculum of agency, enterprise, and impact.

Rooted in the idea of “making shepherds outta sheep”, Social Capital teaches 18–24 year olds to:

Lead with empathy and strategy

Build community-serving enterprises

Mentor the next generation

Transform compliance-based education into a movement for generational change

SPACE

SPACE is a community-anchored social enterprise designed to reimagine youth work, local infrastructure, and intergenerational leadership. Rooted in lived experience, praxis-led learning, and social intelligence, SPACE seeks to create regenerative systems from the ground up.

SPACE is a rebellion against extractive systems. It meets people where they are, listens without agenda, and designs with rather than for. Its core work? Helping people do life — together, with courage, creativity, and care.

 

GET IN TOUCH.

Telephone: 07800 722393

E-mail: rob@robdawson.uk

Address: SPACE, Hertford, SG14 1LF

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© Rob Dawson | Independent Thinker. System Rebuilder.

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