Alethea Melling, MBE, MA, PhD, P.G.C.E

Alethea Melling is a practising artist and community historian who uses these mediums innovatively to engage youth and communities in active citizenship.

Alethea has spent over 25 years working with young people in various contexts. She is responsible for the development and delivery of major volunteering and community cohesion project across Lancashire, Cumbria and Internationally. Alethea Melling has worked on Community Cohesion projects in East Lancashire which have been recognised at Governmental level as examples of good practice. She has acted as advisor to HM Treasury Russell Commission on youth volunteering and presented at national and international conferences on youth volunteering and Youth Leadership.

Alethea has worked as advisor to the Russian Federation Ministry for Education and Science in the development of an inclusive youth Strategy for Russia. She was also a member of the Civil G8 2006 Non Governmental organisation Forum, focusing on Youth and inclusion.

Alethea Melling is currently working with the University of Gujrat, Pakistan, to set up a Centre for Civil Society and a youth engagement programme within schools in Gujrat, Pakistan. She is also working with the California Association of Student Councils, Stanford University, US, to develop a Global Peer Leadership Programme.

She has considerable experience of developing peer leadership programmes with young people who are homeless and who are care leavers. Alethea Melling has recently been made a Governor of Marsden Heights Community College, Pendle, Lancashire and is a Board Member of Coldwell Activity Centre in Nelson. 

In January 2007, Alethea Melling was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her work in developing volunteering and community action at the University of Central Lancashire.

Alethea’s academic interests focus on sport’s leadership, gender and community cohesion, with a particular interest in women’s football from
1916 – 1926.

RESEARCH PAPERS, FILMS, REPORTS AND PUBLICATIONS

 1998  Ray of the Rovers: The Working Class Heroine in Popular Football Fiction, 1915 – 25, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 15, 1998, pp. 97 – 122.

1999 ‘Plucky Lasses, Pea Soup, and Politics’: The role of Ladies’ Football during the 1922 Miners’ Lock Out in Lancashire, The International journal of the History of Sport, 17 (May 1999).

1999 ‘Cultural Differentiation, Shared Aspiration: The Entente Cordiale of International Ladies’ Football, 1920 – 1945, The European Sports History Review, 1, 1999, pp. 27 - 53

2001 ‘Charging Amazons and Fair Invaders: the 1922 Dick, Kerr’s Ladies’ Soccer Tour of North America – Sowing Seed’, The European Sports History Review, 3, 2001, pp. 155 – 180.

2001  Managing the Munitionettes: The Role of Corporate Paternalism during the Development of Ladies’ Footaball 1916 – 1921.
                       Guerra Danzadas. Futbol e Identidades Locales y Regionales en Europa, F.J Caspistegui and J.K Walton (eds), Eunsa, Pamplona, 2001, pp. 119 – 140.

2002  Encyclopedia of British Football, R. Cox, D. Russell, and W. Vamplew, (eds), Cass, London, 2002, pp. 324 – 329.

2003 ‘Burnley’: short art film by young people from white and Asian communities looking at ethnic relations post disturbances, ( Directed by Louise MacKenny – Wallwein, Produced by Alethea Melling)

2004 ‘Soul’: a short art film addressing young people and unemployment in the Rossendale Valley, ( Directed by Louise MacKenny – Wallwein, Produced by Alethea Melling)

2004 ‘Eyes Wide Open’: Life as an Asian Young Person in Nelson, a film poem, (Directed by Louise McKenny Wallwein, produced by Alethea Melling)

2004 ‘Youth Leadership: A Cross Cultural Model’, MV Showcase Event, Birmingham.

2005 ‘Youth Lead Youth’: The Development of Peer Leadership’, Student Volunteering UK Conference, Blackpool

2005 ‘PAARK Foundation FC: Football a Vehicle of Racial Cohesion’, a short paper on a inter racial football team from Nelson in Pendle, delivered at a forum convened by the International Football Institute, UCLan.
2005 ‘Wysemove Young Leaders: Youth Leadership Training and Engagement for Careleavers’, Report to Connexions Lancashire Ltd

2005 ‘The System’, short art film made with homeless young people addressing their lack of identity within the system (Directed by Louise McKenny Wallwein, produced by Alethea Melling)

2005 ‘IN2ICT: A Model for Volunteer Led Peer Education’, PASCAL International Conference, Stirling University.

2005 ‘Youth Volunteering and Inclusion’, Youth Forum, Ministry for Education and Science, RF, Moscow University of Social Science, Moscow, November 2005.

2006 ‘Citizenship and Community Cohesion in Pendle’, NGO Forum, Civil G8, Moscow, March 2006

2006 ‘Winds of Change’, an animated community consultation produced by young people from the Moor Lane area of Preston for Preston City Council, (Directed by William Titley and Alethea Melling, produced by Alethea Melling)

2007  Editor, ‘Report devoted to the Status of Civil Society in the Russian Federation’, The Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, Moscow, July 2007.

2008 ‘‘Do you ‘Ave It?’, Short animation on sexual health by young people in Preston (transferable via Blue Tooth), (Directed by Bob Walley, Produced by Alethea Melling for Central Lancs PCT)

2008 ‘Empower, Engage, Enable: ‘Student volunteering within the Curriculum’, Student volunteering in higher Education: Transitions and Turning Points, Wolverhampton, Sept 2008.