Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Hackney Unites - update
http://tinyurl.com/6xtbfpl
On Wednesday of last week we took delivery of 25,000 copies of the latest Hackney Unites tabloid newspaper. In a remarkable week we have already distributed 18,000 of these. However, we still need some additional help to complete the distribution.
The paper celebrates our community’s coming together in response to the recent riot, but also promotes efforts by our communities to organise in a way that gives us some power to shape our lives and future. Examples of initiatives featured in the paper include: the Borough of Sanctuary project http://www.cityofsanctuary.org/hackney, the campaign to re-open the Haggerston pool: http://www.haggerstonpool.com/ and the stokey local campaign which is seeking to defend the local economy from the devastation that a proposed Sainsbury development would cause http://stokeylocal.org.uk/
We need a final push to distribute these papers. If you can help (even if it is just 300 in your street and a neighbouring street, or through community, faith or commercial outlets) please email hackneyunites@btinternet.com. Let us know your address (so we can drop the papers off) a phone number and the streets you can distribute in (so that we can avoid any risk of duplication).
Upcoming events.
Please also help us promote the following events through cascading this email onto your own networks.
Sunday 26 September
As part of the Uprise anti-racist festival we are hosting an informal discussion on how we challenge racism in the coming 12 months. There will be contributions from the HOPE not hate campaign, from the borough of sanctuary initiative, and a discussion on how we organise in advance of the 2012 GLA elections to maximise voter participation. We will be at the Studio in the Arcola Theatre from 2pm to 4pm. But check out the festival and ensure you enjoy this day long celebration of multiculturalism: http://uprise.org.uk/ taking place across Dalston.
You can help by promoting this event to your friends and posting the link above on your facebook page
Wednesday 26 October
The unemployed workers project (which meets every Friday between 11am and 2pm at the tenants room, Navarino Mansions on Dalston Lane) is organising an unemployed workers conference on the 26 October. For more details or if you want to attend the conference please visit: http://huuwp-eorg.eventbrite.com/
You can help by volunteering to leaflet outside one of the Job centres for an hour over the next few weeks, and by cascading this email onto people you know who are unemployed or qwho work with the unemployed and inviting them to attend the weekly sessions or the conference.
Sunday 30 October
The CLR James legacy project http://www.clrjameslegacyproject.org.uk/ is celebrating the life of one of the 20th century’s greatest advocates for social justice with a meeting at the Open the Gate Cultural Centre. Although speakers have yet to be announced it is highly likely that this event will be oversubscribed. So if you want to attend, please sign up http://clrjameslegacy.eventbrite.com/. If you have any reminiscences of CLR James, or can contribute to the website, please let us know.Please also cascade details of this event onto your networks.
CSV Young Hackney Volunteers
Finally, a big thank you to the Young Hackney Volunteers Project whose members came out and helped deliver our paper in the Stoke Newington area over the weekend. These young people are the future of our community and we are proud to have worked alongside them. If you can promote their work please do:
'CSV Young Hackney Volunteers is a new youth-focused programme funded by Hackney Youth Services, which encourage and support young people in Hackney aged 13-19 (up to 25 with learning difficulties or disabilities) to volunteer across Hackney in a variety of ways. Opportunities may range from football coaching to photography and befriending to fundraising just to name but a few.
By offering accreditation and training opportunities volunteering for young people can be worthwhile and provide useful transferable skills for the future. The programme works to recruit and place volunteers as well as offering the support and know how to groups or organizations to help develop their own volunteering initiatives.
Interested? Want more information or to get involved? Get in contact 020 8510 4900'
Help us build our network,
please forward this email on to others who you think will be interested.
Hackney Unites is a coaltion 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.
Many thanks
John Page
Secretary
Hackney Unites
On Wednesday of last week we took delivery of 25,000 copies of the latest Hackney Unites tabloid newspaper. In a remarkable week we have already distributed 18,000 of these. However, we still need some additional help to complete the distribution.
The paper celebrates our community’s coming together in response to the recent riot, but also promotes efforts by our communities to organise in a way that gives us some power to shape our lives and future. Examples of initiatives featured in the paper include: the Borough of Sanctuary project http://www.cityofsanctuary.org/hackney, the campaign to re-open the Haggerston pool: http://www.haggerstonpool.com/ and the stokey local campaign which is seeking to defend the local economy from the devastation that a proposed Sainsbury development would cause http://stokeylocal.org.uk/
We need a final push to distribute these papers. If you can help (even if it is just 300 in your street and a neighbouring street, or through community, faith or commercial outlets) please email hackneyunites@btinternet.com. Let us know your address (so we can drop the papers off) a phone number and the streets you can distribute in (so that we can avoid any risk of duplication).
Upcoming events.
Please also help us promote the following events through cascading this email onto your own networks.
Sunday 26 September
As part of the Uprise anti-racist festival we are hosting an informal discussion on how we challenge racism in the coming 12 months. There will be contributions from the HOPE not hate campaign, from the borough of sanctuary initiative, and a discussion on how we organise in advance of the 2012 GLA elections to maximise voter participation. We will be at the Studio in the Arcola Theatre from 2pm to 4pm. But check out the festival and ensure you enjoy this day long celebration of multiculturalism: http://uprise.org.uk/ taking place across Dalston.
You can help by promoting this event to your friends and posting the link above on your facebook page
Wednesday 26 October
The unemployed workers project (which meets every Friday between 11am and 2pm at the tenants room, Navarino Mansions on Dalston Lane) is organising an unemployed workers conference on the 26 October. For more details or if you want to attend the conference please visit: http://huuwp-eorg.eventbrite.com/
You can help by volunteering to leaflet outside one of the Job centres for an hour over the next few weeks, and by cascading this email onto people you know who are unemployed or qwho work with the unemployed and inviting them to attend the weekly sessions or the conference.
Sunday 30 October
The CLR James legacy project http://www.clrjameslegacyproject.org.uk/ is celebrating the life of one of the 20th century’s greatest advocates for social justice with a meeting at the Open the Gate Cultural Centre. Although speakers have yet to be announced it is highly likely that this event will be oversubscribed. So if you want to attend, please sign up http://clrjameslegacy.eventbrite.com/. If you have any reminiscences of CLR James, or can contribute to the website, please let us know.Please also cascade details of this event onto your networks.
CSV Young Hackney Volunteers
Finally, a big thank you to the Young Hackney Volunteers Project whose members came out and helped deliver our paper in the Stoke Newington area over the weekend. These young people are the future of our community and we are proud to have worked alongside them. If you can promote their work please do:
'CSV Young Hackney Volunteers is a new youth-focused programme funded by Hackney Youth Services, which encourage and support young people in Hackney aged 13-19 (up to 25 with learning difficulties or disabilities) to volunteer across Hackney in a variety of ways. Opportunities may range from football coaching to photography and befriending to fundraising just to name but a few.
By offering accreditation and training opportunities volunteering for young people can be worthwhile and provide useful transferable skills for the future. The programme works to recruit and place volunteers as well as offering the support and know how to groups or organizations to help develop their own volunteering initiatives.
Interested? Want more information or to get involved? Get in contact 020 8510 4900'
Help us build our network,
please forward this email on to others who you think will be interested.
Hackney Unites is a coaltion 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.
Many thanks
John Page
Secretary
Hackney Unites
Hackney Unemployed Workers Conference
Hackney Unites Unemployed Workers Conference & Jobs Fair
Wednesday 26th October 2011
10-4pm Morley Hall, Mare Street
Bookings: http://huuwp.eventbrite.com 
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Hackney - 1 week on - Clarence Road Tea Party
Pictures credit: Tony Pletts
Tea Party with a difference
Clarence Road tea party has been organised by local residents. The hope is that people will get talking together, and begin to work on ways of taking the local community forward from the disruption of the disturbances.
There will be an opportunity for people to put up their views on ways forward in the future, on post-it notes on a board. The results of that will be fed back later. We are grateful for the support of the local Marks & Spencers shop in providing some of the refreshments and to Hackney Council for all their support.
Fr Rob Wickham, Rector of St John at Hackney, said: “We suggested the idea of an afternoon tea to bring the whole community, including local residents, businesses and faith communities, together exactly one week on from the Hackney riots. Last week Clarence Road was a place of destruction, this week, I pray, Clarence Road will be a place of hopeful healing."
Sarah Pletts, of the Clapton Square User Group, said: “We all need to listen to one another and find out how we’re feeling about this area and how we can improve things. We have supported the Help Siva fund because his shop acts as place where everyone in the community can meet one another and he has been so helpful to so many people.“
Steve Lord, Chair of Pembury Tenants and Residents Association, said: “We welcome the street party. We have already had events this week on the estate to help people talk to one another and share any problems. This will help us to build up better relationships in the wider area and support our local shops.”
Siva Kandhia, shopkeeper, said: “I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has been helping me and all the many people in the community who have given me their sympathy for what has happened and wished me well. My response is – I’ll be back and back soon!”
Ian Rathbone, Chair of the Friends of Siva group, said: “Our streets have been subjected to violent disorder with people subsequently not feeling safe. That is not right in a democratic society. So this is the first stage of ensuring that people do feel safe, and that they also feel listened to and have some ownership over what happens in their area.”
Meg Hillier, the local MP, said: “"This event shows the real spirit of Hackney. Just a week after the area was overwhelmed by violent disorder this event has been organised. The organising residents are here for the long haul. I now ask that the media leave us alone to get on and do what we do best and to sort out our own affairs. I must say thanks to all those involved in organising the street party and the Help Siva fund including Fr Rob Wickham and St John at Hackney for all their help with tables, volunteers and other things.”
Vincent Stops, local ward councillor, said: “The Pembury Estate is fine, there was very little damage to the fabric of the estate. The residents I know are resilient. There are a lot of good people on it who have been working hard to build up community. I am sure these disturbances will not hinder them from continuing their good work. I will be working with all residents to see what we can achieve in improving our community life.”
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Youth from Emashi share their thoughts on the Hackney disturbances...
Last week Hackney CVS hosted a meeting with Ed Miliband to talk about the reasons for last week's disturbances and what can be done. Here Adwoa and Djanomi from Emashi share with Hackney Unites their thoughts and plans they are making to bring communities together.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
A message to the youth of Hackney
In the aftermath of the riot in Tottenham, and with the violence on the Narrow Way, we call on the youth of Hackney to show restraint and urge you not to get caught up in rioting.
We ask this because a riot is not good for you and it is not good for our community.
We know your anger:
• at the lack of education, training or jobs in the borough
• at the slim life chances that are afforded you;
• at the police who so often fail to protect young people, but who appear relentless in their determination to ensure that you ‘know your place’.
In a society that chooses not to respect you, participating in a riot can appear like an act of rebellion and a response to a complex series of problems: giving the police a hard time for once, and adopting the stereotypes of recklessness, criminality and brutality with which you are so often labelled.
However, a riot destroys what little we have in terms of our community assets, it also places the rioters, as well as bystanders at great risk.
The use of petrol bombs and the burning of buildings is not only devastatingly destructive to the institutions and businesses in our community. It puts peoples lives at risk. In Handsworth in 1985, two people died when trapped in their flat above a shop, in 2005 a similar tragedy occurred in the Lozells district of Birmingham. On Saturday night in Tottenham families with children had to flee through a burning building to escape.
Burning, destruction, and putting the lives of members of our community at risk is not the way to express your legitimate anger at being left behind in the boom years and expected to pay with your future when the economy crashed. You are capable of more imaginative and more effective ways of demanding economic and social justice.
You may feel that in the aftermath of a number of high profile deaths particularly from the black community in police custody, a riot is inevitable. But a riot is the response of those who have no alternative channel for their anger. In America, following the assassination of Martin Luther King, the black ghettos erupted. Yet, where the Black Panther Party organised, the most militant of black radical organisations, they called on the community not to riot, but to organise for justice. We urge you to do the same.
Finally, please consider the risks you are exposing yourself to. The police are sophisticated in tracking down rioters. CCTV cameras mean that you can be tracked; covering your face simply won’t protect you. The maximum prison terms for rioting is ten years and it is unusual for sentences for riot to be any less than five years. Even lesser offences of violent disorder receive very stiff penalties from the courts.
It is not just the risk of imprisonment: in 1981 during the Toxteth riot the police used vehicles driven at high speed into crowds to disperse them. One young man, not even involved in the disturbance, was killed when he did not move fast enough.
In this statement we have not joined the long list of politicians and police officers who race to condemn rioters, as if their own policies and failings were not a major ingredient in the toxic mix that creates the context in which riots occur. We have not pretended that you are ‘outsiders’ but have spoken to you as members of our community, who we want to remain in our community. Please do not let your anger blind you to the madness that is rioting.
We ask this because a riot is not good for you and it is not good for our community.
We know your anger:
• at the lack of education, training or jobs in the borough
• at the slim life chances that are afforded you;
• at the police who so often fail to protect young people, but who appear relentless in their determination to ensure that you ‘know your place’.
In a society that chooses not to respect you, participating in a riot can appear like an act of rebellion and a response to a complex series of problems: giving the police a hard time for once, and adopting the stereotypes of recklessness, criminality and brutality with which you are so often labelled.
However, a riot destroys what little we have in terms of our community assets, it also places the rioters, as well as bystanders at great risk.
The use of petrol bombs and the burning of buildings is not only devastatingly destructive to the institutions and businesses in our community. It puts peoples lives at risk. In Handsworth in 1985, two people died when trapped in their flat above a shop, in 2005 a similar tragedy occurred in the Lozells district of Birmingham. On Saturday night in Tottenham families with children had to flee through a burning building to escape.
Burning, destruction, and putting the lives of members of our community at risk is not the way to express your legitimate anger at being left behind in the boom years and expected to pay with your future when the economy crashed. You are capable of more imaginative and more effective ways of demanding economic and social justice.
You may feel that in the aftermath of a number of high profile deaths particularly from the black community in police custody, a riot is inevitable. But a riot is the response of those who have no alternative channel for their anger. In America, following the assassination of Martin Luther King, the black ghettos erupted. Yet, where the Black Panther Party organised, the most militant of black radical organisations, they called on the community not to riot, but to organise for justice. We urge you to do the same.
Finally, please consider the risks you are exposing yourself to. The police are sophisticated in tracking down rioters. CCTV cameras mean that you can be tracked; covering your face simply won’t protect you. The maximum prison terms for rioting is ten years and it is unusual for sentences for riot to be any less than five years. Even lesser offences of violent disorder receive very stiff penalties from the courts.
It is not just the risk of imprisonment: in 1981 during the Toxteth riot the police used vehicles driven at high speed into crowds to disperse them. One young man, not even involved in the disturbance, was killed when he did not move fast enough.
In this statement we have not joined the long list of politicians and police officers who race to condemn rioters, as if their own policies and failings were not a major ingredient in the toxic mix that creates the context in which riots occur. We have not pretended that you are ‘outsiders’ but have spoken to you as members of our community, who we want to remain in our community. Please do not let your anger blind you to the madness that is rioting.
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