All groups in this round received an emergency grant of £500, in order to continue doing and adapt work during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This round was open to groups previously funded by Edge Fund, in order for us to get emergency money to groups as quickly as possible.
Books Beyond Bars, UK Wide
Beyond Bars are queer and trans prison abolitionists who send books and other educational materials to LGBTQAI+ people who are incarcerated in prisons, young offenders, and detention centres, as a way of providing practical support to those inside. They also support abolitionist work - particularly against prison expansion - and seek to promote abolitionist politics within the queer and trans communities.
Bradford Survivor Alliance, Northern England
Bradford Survivor Alliance is a group of people that are victims of human trafficking and modern day slavery but have escaped from their traffickers. They are an independent organisation that is linked to a global network of survivor leaders, the Survivors Alliance. Bradford Survivor Alliance challenges anti-slavery and trafficking organisations who speak about them but don’t allow them to have a voice around the table. Thei main aim is to change policies and practice on how survivors are being treated in the UK.
Bristol Housing Action Movement, Southern England
Many of those in Bristol Housing Action Movement have been involved in squatting empty properties as a personal and political response to homelessness. They believe empty properties should be used for public benefit, not left to decay and blight their cities. The introduction of new legislation (LASPO 2011) has made squatting more difficult and helped to increase the numbers of homeless people. They believe it is vital to oppose the new restrictive law by organising protest occupations. They also wish to challenge the increasing use of court injunctions against homeless people and those occupying land or buildings.
DPAC Norfolk, Southern England
DPAC Norfolk will use this grant to establish a UK wide network of individuals and organisations dedicated to scrapping UC. This will be a national social movement which will unite in action all those who want to campaign to stop and scrap UC based on experiences of DPAC nationally and DPAC Norfolk locally.
Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty, Scotland
Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) is a group run and led by people in poverty, be they low paid workers, disabled people, or people on benefits. They combat poverty on the principle of solidarity and self-activity in communities and workplaces. They actively seek to encourage links between different sections of the working class, with practical activity and direct action against our economic system based on exploitation. ECAP regularly supports people with poverty related issues at regular drop-ins at the Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh. They provide benefit advice, and accompany people to assessments and interviews at Jobcentres, workfare providers or PIP and Work Capability evaluations. When the authorities fail to resolve issues, ECAP also holds pickets, protests and direct action in support of their members.
Ffena is a collective of Black women living with HIV, headquartered in London but with representation in 12 UK locations. Our community based project work is led by ourselves, users of services, and we work to challenge the determinants of health: social conditions, food/fuel poverty, immigration issues, poor housing, benefit issues, marginalisation, lifestyle, diet and exercise. We work through empowerment - By building social capital, empowerment, knowledge and the ability to challenge established oppressive systems. Black women are the group that is most heavily impacted by HIV but our voices are historically least heard. Our group came about through strong Black women challenging a Euro-centric paternalistic medical profession making decisions on us without consultation. Our watchwords are: ‘No decisions about us Without us’.
Fuel Poverty Action, UK Wide
Fuel Poverty Action’s (FPA) work focuses on the intersection of social justice and climate change. Fuel poverty emerged from free-market capitalism, which has enabled an energy oligopoly of suppliers to behave like a cartel, inching up prices in concert year-on-year. People on low incomes pay most. The Big Six and fossil fuel companies (subsidized £5.9 billion a year and given a huge 32% tax-break in 2013 by the Con-Dems) have shown that power is too important to be controlled by private interests. We need locally sourced publicly run renewable energy companies that are accountable to us. FPA helped set up Switched on London (a community energy for London campaign) and campaign for fairer prices from existing suppliers.
Galway Feminist Collective, Ireland
The Galway Feminist Collective is a grassroots group of activists and artists which uses creative ways to explore, discuss and give visibility to feminist issues. They aim to include all communities, groups and individuals working to advance woman's rights in Galway and to challenge any barriers to participation based on gender, ethnicity, sexuality, ability or religion.
JENGbA (Joint Enterprise - Not Guilty By Association), UK Wide
Joint Enterprise is a legal abuse of power. Research has concluded it to be an area of law that is racist and discriminatory towards the working class. They have already had a breakthrough at the Supreme Court but feel there is still a significant amount of work to do in terms of helping those convicted before the Supreme Court acknowledged the law had been misinterpreted for over 30 years. And to continue to chip away at the CPS’s unfair use of JE.
Kushti Bok, Southern England
Kushti Bok campaigns against prejudice towards the GTR community in Dorset. Kushti Bok has challenged local media, with some success gained, leading to more balanced reporting regarding GTR. This is an ongoing problem and the press (in print and online) needs to be constantly monitored.
Leeds Unity Centre, Northern England
We operate a safe and friendly, volunteer-run, support Centre for asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants. We provide practical and emotional support and solidarity to refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants in West Yorkshire.
LGBT Unity Glasgow, Scotland
LGBT Unity work to end detention, deportation, destitution, lack of access to resources and the discriminatory and racist practises of the UK immigration system. The Home Office and their racist, sexist, homophobic immigration controls serve to alienate people and keep us fighting in a state of isolation. Their group is the only place in Scotland where the space is held solely for LGBTQ asylum seekers and allies to come together in safety and care to share experiences, support, strategies and ideas for the future.
Liverpool Social Centre Collective, Northern England
Liverpool Social Centre Collective runs Next to Nowhere which is a radical social centre created in, and run by activists from the Merseyside area as part of efforts to bring about a fair, free and sustainable society - one without hierarchy, discrimination, or the exploitation of people, animals and the planet for profit. We believe this is only possible through the direct action of ordinary people against capitalism & the state. The centre exists to support anyone acting to defend themselves and their communities against attacks by business and government, locally and globally, and those acting in solidarity with them, through direct action, campaign work, education, and sharing skills and resources. Social centre volunteers come from a range of backgrounds - community activism, youth work, animal rights, anti-war, environmentalism, feminism and anarchism - and our work reflects this.
London Campaign Against Police and State Violence, Southern England
London Campaign Against Policce and State Violence was founded to make the Metropolitan Police accountable to local communities for abuses of power and bring an end to its culture of brutality and racial profiling, including the racist use of Stop & Search powers. To work towards this aim, they offer help, support and solidarity to victims of police and state abuses of power; we provide advocacy support, Stop and Search workshops, advice on police complaints and solidarity and awareness-raising of issues around state racism and police violence.
Movimiento Jaguar Despierto, Southern England/UK Wide
Movimiento Jaguar Despierto is an organisation that aims to create awareness and visualize the issues that affect indigenous communities, workers, displaced communities, women and migrant communities in Latin America and here in the UK. They use direct action, educational events, and campaigns in support of the Latin American community.
Northern Police Monitoring Project, Northern England
The Northern Police Monitoring Project is an independent, grassroots, collective that aims to respond to the multiple injustices committed through policing and over-policing in the Greater Manchester area.
Sisters of Frida, UK Wide
An experimental co operative of disabled women who want a new way of sharing experiences, mutual support and relationships with different networks. As disabled women continue to struggle to have their voices heard in their own right, they would like to build a sisterhood, a circle of disabled women to discuss, share experiences and explore intersectional possibilities.
Virtual Migrants, Northern England
Virtual Migrants is a Manchester-based, migrant-led collective that has been campaigning to raise awareness of race, global inequality and migrant-justice issues since 1998. VM engages the public via visual, new media and performance practice which strongly resists the ‘pornography of suffering’ and ‘charity case’ depiction of migrant peoples. Their recent focus has been to intervene where dominant narratives of climate change exclude historical, imperial, class and racial contexts and to promote awareness of the growing demand for climate justice from underdeveloped/exploited countries and its relationship to lives and politics in countries such as the UK.
Ubuntu Women Shelter, Scotland
Ubuntu women’s night shelter will be the first dedicated shelter in the UK that provides short term accommodation for women with no recourse to public funds. Importantly, the shelter will be run and managed by persons with lived experience of Destitution, Asylum and Migration. Their collective has more than ten years of shared experience in supporting destitute Asylum seekers.
Unis Resist Border Controls, UK Wide
Unis Resist Border Controls are a migrant-led movement working to oppose the encroachment of the militarised border and the hostile environment policy into UK universities. We work from universities because that is where we are, but we are opposed to setting university students and staff apart as somehow worthier than other migrants; rather, we believe in freedom of movement for all students, workers, immigrants, travellers, and refugees, and we want to build solidarity among these groups. We believe that migrants should be not only welcomed but also heard, and we are committed to publicising the words of precarious migrants rather than those who might speak for us.