Thursday, June 21, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Hackney Unites Unemployed Workers Project (HUUWP) are hosting an ‘Express Yourself’ Conference for unemployed workers.
Refreshments provided
Free stalls for community/employment/youth groups email:andrea@hackneyunites.org.uk to book
"Express yourself 2012" offers local unemployed people the opportunity to:
- Get information about local job and training opportunities
- Showcase skills. Share what they can do. Sign up to our on-line skills directory on the day.
- Discuss how unemployment affects people’s everyday lives – and what we can do about it.
- Sign up to our unemployed workers charter addressing issues such as the Work Programme and apprenticeships.
- Visit stalls and get information …and much more. We are a community group formed last year to bring together and empower local unemployed people. We meet every Friday (11-2pm) at at: Hackney CVS, 84 Tyssen Street, London, E8 and lunch is provided. Meetings range from practical workshops to professional advice sessions. From discussions on health issues to knowing your benefits rights; stop and search issues to signposting free skill workshops in the borough. We often have speakers from other community organisations to inform us of what they are doing. To find out more about us email:huuwproject@gmail.com
Monday, June 11, 2012
A request for help from an unemployed activist...
To Supporters and Members of Hackney Unites
My name is David Walter and I am working
with Andrea and Gee as part of the Hackney Unites Unemployed Workers Project
(HUUWP) that is building up for The Express Yourself Conference on the Thursday 28th June 20102
12pm-4pm.
The reason why I’m writing to you is that
we really need your help in spreading the word about the Conference to as many
communities in Hackney as possible through word of mouth, Posters and Leafleting,
especially to young unemployed people and people in their over-50s who are
struggling with redundancy or long term under or unemployment .
This will be our second Conference and we
want to make this the best Conference yet. Last year’s event was a success, therefore
your support and assistance again will be greatly appreciated. Your time and
effort is of real value to us for the future and integrity of The Express
yourself Conference 2012.
We will be making a final poster long
before the actual day, so we can make as many people as aware as possible. the
poster will emphasize aspects of the event like Film competitions, Stop and
Search & Know your rights, Films, Unemployment and the over 50s, Poetry and
The Work Programme.
We are also in the process of designing a
leaflet that we want to distribute to attendees at the event to promote our
Skills Directory Website. We are currently developing the Website and we are
hoping many will sign up to it at the Conference and afterwards.
We want some members of Hackney Unites to
attend the Conference and help distribute them to as many people as possible so
we can get people to download their C.V.s, Portfolios or create their Skills
and Employment Profiles in order to build up this new Website and therefore
provide a network base for prospective employers, employees and self- employed
people.
We meet every Friday 12pm - 2pm to plan and
contact Voluntary, Community Organisations and others and ask them to attend
the conference to give support and provide a network for unemployed and under
employed people in Hackney. This is an ongoing Project and we need as much
support and assistance as possible. I f you have any time on the Friday or
during the week it will be most welcome.
Please get in contact as soon as you can
with me David (cantysmith567@hotmail.co.uk) Andrea (andrea@hackneyunites.org.uk) or
Gee (whowhatmewhat@yahoo.co.uk) as your time and effort will make the event,
The Express Yourself Conference a valuable tool for the under-employed and
unemployed People of Hackney
Thank you very much for your time.
Kind Regards
David Walter (Hackney Unites Unemployed Workers
Project)
Friday, June 8, 2012
2 minute film competition for Hackney’s unemployed - deadline 20th June
2 minute film
competition for Hackney’s unemployed
HUUWP, a Hackney Unites project supporting unemployed people
has launched a film competition to give voice to the unemployed.
Supported by the prestigious London Fim School
Competition coordinator Gee said, ‘Life on the dole can
often be misconceived as a life of leisure. We feel it is important for
unemployed people to have their say.’
Films can me made on smart phones, cameras or computers and should
be no longer than 2 mins long. They should be emailed to huuwproject@gmail.com
– DEADLINE
20th June 2012
Prizes will include mentoring opportunities with film
makers, free gym sessions, cinema tickets and much more.
Winners will be announced at Express Yourself 2012 – a
conference for Hackney’s Unemployed that will take place on 28th
June at Hackney Carers Centre 12-4pm.
For more info visit: http://huuwp.wordpress.com
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Power Mapping with Hackney Unites
a report on a Hackney Unites community training event by Teena Lashmore.
HU undertook a chilled training session
with newly interested members of the community last Saturday 2 June 2012.
The key developmental point was how to
organise communities and empower them to challenge those in a position of power
– in order to make a change. Inspiration
was taken from a famous quote by Martin Luther King which in summary explained
that effective power is: getting those in a position of power to say yes when
they would rather say no.
The group looked at the benefits of
coalitions and at less formal arrangements such as those the borough witnessed
in the ‘Stokey Local’ campaign. In
Stokey Local, community members and other interested groups got together to
campaign against the proposed Sainsbury development off of Stoke Newington
Church Street. As a response to this,
Sainsbury made changes to their development, which addressed many of the
concerns raised in the campaign. In this
regard the Stokey Local campaign was seen as an example of an initial victory
for community organising.
Developing peer relationships with one’s
community and sharing in the developing of a strategy are seen as instrumental
to successful organising and empowering of communities; and one of the key
tools used in unpacking this dynamic is Power Mapping.
In this training session we used a case
study on organising the community to stop the closure of ticketing offices at
local railway stations in the borough of Hackney. Using an axis to illustrate those in
influential positions but having less power to those with most power and highly
unlikely to agree to make changes, the small groups began to map their
community. By identifying these parties
and placing them on the axis, it clarified who could be mobilised, which
organisations and charities could come together to create effective alliances
and coalitions and who the community could call upon to make direct links to
the local MP.
Some of us participating in the training
had never been involved in developing and empowering communities and it was interesting
to see that regardless of where each of us was coming from as individuals, the
Power Mapping tool revealed that we all agreed on key stages such as the local
MP would have to lobby the Minister of Transport. Furthermore, the tool allowed us to see how
we could empower our communities to affect a different outcome for the railway
stations.
Power Mapping as a tool not only focused us
as individuals on the case study, it also allowed for the further developing of
peer relationships – where we could all appreciate each other for our different
strengths and skills – thus empowering ourselves!
Our Saturday afternoon of training
concluded with a chilled out session in the local bar. Here we drank some cool juice, wines and
beers, and even the sun popped out to bless our skins with her warm rays – one
could argue this section was the beautiful and unexpected consequences of Power
Mapping!
Hackney Unites needs you...
- our unemployed workers conference which is taking place on Thursday 28 June. We need your help to publicise this and to help make it a success.
- A Stokey Local meeting on Tuesday 12 June
- A meeting of our Private Sector Tenants forum on 17 June.
- Finally we announce the date for our community conference: Saturday 22 September.
- the screening of the winning entries from a short film competition about unemployment,
- a session for unemployed people who are over 50,
- a session on stop and search
- a discussion about the welfare to work and
- future campaigning on issues affects unemployed people in Hackney.
- If you have skills in promotion and marketing we need help promote the film competition.
- If you have a spare hour or two we need your help to distribute flyers advertising the conference in local shops, doctors’ surgeries, bookies, cafeteria libraries, job centres etc.
- Finally we need somebody who can give up some time to phone local voluntary organisations that we have identified as potential stall holders for the conference.
Stokey Local meeting 12 June
Sainsbury are back with plans for a superstore in Wilmer Place. Residents are concerned at the sheer scale of the development, its impact on Abney Park Cemetery and the damage it will do to independent traders in Church Street and the High Street. The community group Stokey Local are calling a meeting on Tuesday 12 June at the Old Fire Station Lewsin Road. If you intend to attend, then please register: http://stokeylocal.eventbrite.com/
Private Sector Tenants forum 17 June
The next meeting for the private tenants project is scheduled for Sunday 17th June, (venue to be confirmed). If you are a private sector tenant in Hackney and want to develop an understanding of your rights and how to assert them, why not get involved. More details from Heather: heatherkennedy83@yahoo.co.uk
Saturday 22 September: Put the date in your diary!
Hackney Unites’ long awaited second community conference is now scheduled for the afternoon of Saturday 22 September. Please put the date in your diary. There will be a particular theme on community development through formal and informal education and training. We will be launching a scheme with a trade union partner on seeking to persuade local employers to recruit and train local people. We will also be delivering training on community organising, and exploring what issues such as migration, education and unemployment mean for our communities. It will be an organising conference with the aspiration that at the end of the sessions we come away with a clear set of objectives and plans for the months ahead. If you want to be part of shaping the contents, then please complete an on-line survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XZK3VGQ
Help us spread the word
Please help us publicise the above events by forwarding this email onto people you know in Hackney who would be interested in the issues. Can you post a link to this email on facebook, or twitter? Better still, spread the word by word of mouth, tell a friend and encourage them to get involved.
Hackney Unites is a coalition for social justice, if you are not already on our mailing list, you can sign up on-line (http://eepurl.com/bPJDH) to receive regular updates.
You can also follow us on twitter and join us on facebook.
Many thanks
John Page
Secretary
Hackney Unites
Brand new ‘A Taste of Hackney’ app launches at summer event on Ridley Road Market.
|
A TASTE OF HACKNEY at your
fingertips.
Savour the spirit, smell and
stories of one of Hackney’s most treasured markets with this groundbreaking
smartphone app.
|
A Different Drum Productions will be
launching the ‘A Taste of Hackney’ app and celebrating the end of its
intergenerational digital heritage project, A Taste of Hackney, with an all day
event on Ridley Road Market.
The event will take place on Saturday 16th
June 2012 from 9.30am – 5pm with a variety of free arts activities and food
tasting on offer for all the family.
There will be various stalls where people
can watch live cooking demonstrations featuring recipes from around the globe,
all made from produce bought from the market. Families will also be invited to
make their own Eton Mess with food specialists Social Kitchen providing a
summer twist on a classic English recipe. Cake decorating workshops will also
be taking place.
Pupils from Colvestone Primary school
will be leading a treasure hunt and poetry workshops. Pensioners from Agewell UK will also be
on hand to take people on a personal, guided tours, sharing their memories of
the market and local area and collecting tasty ingredients along the way.
There will also be a photography exhibition
along the market where the audience can stop and listen to oral history
interviews and interact with the app.
About the Project
For the last 8 months Year 6 pupils from
Colvestone Primary School, Hackney and pensioners from Agewell Computer Club,
AgeUK Hackney have taken part in an innovative intergenerational digital media
project. A Taste of Hackney saw the group work with local arts organisation A
Different Drum Productions CIC to investigate the history of Ridley Road Market
through sound, film and photography.
The project tells the story of immigration
in the area through the variety of produce available from market. Starting from
the markets’ humbles beginnings in the mid-19th century, its evolution from
1900 to 1950 when its goods reflected the local Jewish community, to its
present day person reflecting Turkish, African and West Indian influences,
Ridley Road Market has always reflected the different communities that have
made the borough home.
The app features panoply of audio tracks
revealing the hidden stories, tales of lost practices, poetry and oral
histories woven into captivating audio soundscapes that will immerse the
listener into an intimate world through the eyes of the market. Hundreds of
images capture the essence of the market, interactive games and videos of
recipes all created by the group will propel the user back to the past in an audio-visual
adventure.
All content on the app has been devised to
take the listener beyond the familiar - to discover the untold stories of the
borough’s past, as told by the people that live and work there. By placing
people at the heart of the project A Taste of Hackney will achieve a truly ground-breaking
synchronization between people and place.
The A Taste of Hackney app will be
available on Android and iPhone and free to download. The accompanying website
will launch in May 2012.
ENDS
–
For further information, please contact
Sam Schneider, Project Manager, A Taste of Hackney
E: sam@adifferentdrumproductions.com
Tel: 020 7288 4554/ 07432736116
Find us on Twitter:
@a_differentdrum
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