Bring Hackney Together

Across Europe the far right is surging, race riots are now an annual event, making the most vulnerable communities in this country extremely unsafe. A far right government is not out of the question following the next general election.

Emissions continue to rise year after year, the climate continues to break down, raising food prices, insurance premiums, making homes and working conditions unsafe and threatening devastating extreme weather each year. This will only get worse faster and faster.

Austerity continues to devastated essential local services, four million children 27% live in relative poverty after housing costs.

People live their lives with almost no access to meaningful democratic control. Even the deployment of the UK military is not legally up to a parliamentary vote, across local areas people feel completely detached from government and unable to change anything.

These problems are existential for our society, none of our groups is capable of tackling let alone solving them alone, but all our work is made harder by this continued deterioration.

So what's the plan? People are proposing to hold meetings networking key community groups across 11 London boroughs (and cities and towns across the rest of the country). The time has come to strategise together, get to know each other and find out how our groups can assist each other.

Meetings have already been held in Harringey and experienced groups with track records are putting their weight behind this. Shake It Up has built community assembly infrastructure from scratch in Lambeth and recently held a housing assembly in Lambeth Town Hall pulling in 60+ community members across a diverse range of Lambeth Communities. This network already extends beyond the UK with groups in France and Germany agreeing to take part.

The emphasis will be on your group's and your area's needs, the meeting exists to facilitate connections between groups in Hackney and how the rest of London can provide support, training and resources for the strategy that suits you best.

Many other groups will be taking part. Come along to 22nd of November from 3:15 -6:15pm at The Sunroom, Eastway Baths 80 EASTWAY, LONDON E9 5JH . We are all looking forward to getting to know you.