On 23 January 2016 the following grants were agreed at our funding day:
Focus E15 (£3,000)
The Focus E15 campaign was born in September 2013 when a group of young mothers were served eviction notices by East Thames Housing Association after Newham Council cut its funding to the Focus E15 hostel for young homeless people. This prompted the mothers to get organised and demand social housing, not social cleansing! In the year since its inception, the campaign has gone from strength to strength, with a weekly stall in Stratford, an occupation of Newham Council’s housing office, and a march of several hundred supporters to Newham Town Hall all contributing towards the mothers’ growing national profile.
Hammersmith & Fulham Coalition Against Cuts (£2,800)
Hammersmith and Fulham Coalition Against Cuts (HAFCAC) is a campaign group led by and for disabled and older people in the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. They were originally formed to challenge cuts that are marginalising communities and targeting the poorest and most disadvantaged members of society. By providing information and challenging the cuts they aim to help break the link between poverty and older and disabled people.
Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) (£3,000)
JENGbA is a grass roots campaign launched in 2010 by families wanting to highlight the abuse of the Joint Enterprise doctrine. They are currently supporting over 600 prisoners, men women and children, the youngest of which is 13 years of age. Almost 80% of JENGbA prisoners are from BME communities.
Manchester Migrant Solidarity (£3,000)
Manchester Migrant Solidarity (Manchester MiSol) is a self-help group set up as a convergence space for all migrants, including asylum seekers, offering practical and social activities for mutual support, empowerment and solidarity with non-migrants to build a powerful political voice against the systematic mistreatment of migrants in the UK.
Unity Centre (£3,000)
The Unity Centre gives practical support and solidarity to all asylum seekers and other migrants in Scotland. They also support anyone detained in the UK’s Immigration Removal Detention Centres. Since it has opened they have helped over one hundred families and countless individuals to be released from immigration detention. If someone is detained they help contact their lawyer, friends and family, arrange for their belongings to be looked after, provide emotional support and encouragement, contact the press and media about their case and run emergency campaigns and protests to stop them being forcibly removed.
Defend the Right to Protest (£1,700)
Defend the Right to Protest campaign against police brutality, kettling and the use of violence against those who have a right to protest. They campaign to defend all those protestors who have been arrested, bailed or charged and are fighting to clear their names.
100 Mothers Movement (£1,500)
Established in 2010 the 100 Mothers Movement is a community grassroots organization created in response to continuously seeing an ever expanding gap between the needs of disadvantaged Black women in the community and what was offered to empower them to be productive and contribute more to the wider community. Their aims are to instigate positive social change and be the necessary platform utilized by disadvantaged black women. They aim to be the mouthpiece for the voiceless concerning the issues experienced in the community regarding race and gender inequality.
4WardEver (£1,500)
4WardEver UK is a community collective providing news and information sharing services for their readers and members. Their purpose is to provide a one-stop-resource for case profiles, news and event details, useful resources, statistics, appeals, and more in relation to deaths and abuses whilst in custody; including the death penalty, other injustices and human rights abuses in the UK and internationally.
Africa Centre Rise! (£1,500)
Africa Centre Rise! is a radical, nationwide community development and activist collective. As grassroots campaigners from the African Diaspora in Britain, they came together to legally challenge the injustice (and lack of consultation) surrounding the sale and change of use of the Africa Centre in Covent Garden, London. Their aims are to expose the corruption and institutional racism that led to the sale of the Africa Centre, and to ensure that the African Diaspora in Britain receives full restitution under UK and International law. They also aim to empower people of African heritage to take similar radical action to address the historical question of reparatory justice that looms over our community today.
Belfast Solidarity Federation (£1,500)
The Belfast Local of the Solidarity Federation first came together two and a half years ago and are working to establish an education, labour resource and solidarity centre in the city. A centre of this kind will offer practical solidarity and support to people as workers or claimants, or in struggles against racism, queerphobia, sectarianism, sexism and for a woman’s right to abortion.
CAME Women and Girls Development Organisation (£1,500)
CAME Women and Girls Development Organisation (CAWOGIDO), started in 2010 as a group of BAME women experiencing violence. They are dedicated to improving the independence of women/girls who have experienced sexual and domestic abuse. 1,000 members of their community have benefited indirectly through campaign and community outreach activities, 10 organisations members benefited from capacity building including 6 BAME organisations.
Community Monitoring Project (£1,500)
Community Monitoring Project (CMP) is an independent grassroots constituted community based group committed to supporting members of racialised and minoritised communities to challenge racist, discriminatory, disproportionate and oppressive practice. Their remit it is to advocate for members of racialised and minoritised communities to support challenges and complaints relating to misuse of statutory powers and practices by the statutory bodies and in particular misconduct, corruption, violence and human rights abuses perpetrated by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), primarily, but not exclusively, in west London where they are based.
London Campaign Against Police and State Violence (£1,500)
South London communities and groups are coming together to oppose police brutality and legal violence. LCAPSV’s aim is to support victims of police assault and to link them in a London-wide campaign. They will be monitoring police harassment of communities and people of colour in particular. LCAPSV has supported numerous people who have been beaten, abused, subjected to harassment and unlawful imprisonment. They offer help, support and solidarity to victims of police and state abuses of power, and can offer information to aid complaints and to get justice.
Transition Heathrow (£1,500)
Transition Heathrow came together in March 1St, 2010 seeking to create an alternative to the hierarchical, environmentally destructive and oppressive injustices of the structures that fuel airport expansion in the Heathrow Villages. Their main project is Grow Heathrow, a squatted community food growing project on a site that was previously derelict. It is a community hub where they grow food, run workshops and support the local community with their campaign against Heathrow’s 3rd runway.
Ubele Initiative (£1,500)
The Ubele Initiative is an African Diaspora social action focused organisation. Their main activities have focused on co-designing local grassroots strategies to create practical solutions in relation to the ownership of community buildings within the African heritage community. They also undertake wider community engagement, empowerment, campaigning and social change activities. Their underlying aims are to build on intergenerational leadership and social action processes in order to identify and address some of our most pressing social, economic and political concerns that their community faces.
Small grants were also awarded to the following groups in this round:
Association of Gypsies and Travellers Wales (£1,500)
The Association of Gypsies & Travellers in Wales is made up of a small number of Gypsies and Travellers acting together and was formed in February 2015. The Association was formed in response to concerns that a growing number of charities are claiming to speak on behalf of Gypsies & Travellers and raising money to do so with very little or no involvement from the communities that they claim to speak for. The main aim of the Association is to encourage Gypsies and Travellers to be more vocal and more active in the communities where they live.
United Family and Friends Campaign (£1,000)
The United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC), is a coalition of those affected by deaths in police, prison and psychiatric custody, supports others in similar situations. Established in 1997 initially as a network of Black families, over recent years the group has expanded and now includes the families and friends of people from varied ethnicities who have also died in custody.
Smash IPP Campaign (£1,000)
Smash IPP is a collective of anarchists and anti-authoritarians, who have chosen to stand against IPP. They aim to raise awareness of IPP and work towards the release of all persons in prison who have passed their original sentence. IPP is indeterminate sentence for public protection; this allows the court to add time onto an existing prison sentence and therefore pushing back the release date indefinitely. The IPP sentence was abolished in 2012, however, this was what not done retrospectively. This left more than 5000 people in jail for a non-existing law with no date of release.
Drifting Hope (£1,000)
Drifting hope group was established in January 2015 to address the plights of refugees crossing the border of Calais into the UK. The group has membership of 10 people who are immigrants and refugees from different nationalities. The aims of Drifting Hope is to provide practical and emotional support for refugees who are fleeing war, persecutions of all sorts and desperately crossing the Mediterranean Sea for safety in Europe.
London Women’s Voices (£800)
London Women’s Voices was constituted in June 2015, having formed via community singing-for-empowerment workshops. Their aim is to support the empowerment and emancipation of self-identifying women who are working for social justice. The work builds health, voice and community to build women’s power and resilience as they work to create social change in our families, communities, workplaces and on the streets. Many of the group use their voices to make protest more powerful and energising for all involved. They have supported the protest work of Movement for Justice, Black Dissidents, Latin American Women’s Aid, Focus E15, CADFA (supporting Palestinian youth and women).
Sisters Uncut (£800)
Since the now previous Coalition Government began its campaign of austerity in 2010, cutting funding for essential public services with impunity, grassroots groups raised their collective voices and mobilised to oppose them. Sisters Uncut emerged from this context in 2014. They aim to break the palpable silence surrounding the fact that austerity measures have a disproportionate impact on women, and to fight the deliberate dismantling of the safety net of specialist support services for women fleeing domestic violence, through direct action. They are very clear in our position: these cuts are ideological, not necessary, and safety is a right not a privilege.
Right to Housing Action Project (£500)
RHAP is a small group of people in Belfast who are seeking to campaign for an end of enforced homelessness among ‘refused’ asylum seekers. The group first met in early July 2015.
Sex Worker Breakfasts (£500)
Sex Worker Breakfasts offer an “infoshop” –leaflets/signposting to other services: benefits, migration, asylum, housing/homelessness, anti-racism, anti-raids, police harassment, sexual/domestic violence support, LGBTQUIA support networks, counselling, other sex worker support projects, clinics and collectives. It is open to all those who identify as current sex workers.
African Rainbow Family (£500)
African Rainbow Family (ARF) is a non-for-profit organisation that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender intersexual and queer (LGBTIQ) people of African heritage. It was established in the wake of the toxic and draconian anti-gay laws, persecutions and environment which seek to criminalise LGBTIQs for the preference of whom they choose to love.
Framework Inclusion, Kate Belgrave and Johnny Void (£500)
A joint project run by Framework Inclusion UK, a member-led group run by disabled people, Kate Belgrave, an independent freelance journalist who writes interview-based stories about people directly affected by austerity cuts and Johnny Void, a leading social security journalist and blogger. The aim of the project is to resist new measures the Department of Work and Pensions plans to introduce and seek systematic change through collection and dissemination of evidence via their extensive networks.
Norfolk Disabled People Against Cuts (£500)
Norfolk Disabled People Against Cuts was formed in 2012 to campaign against the vicious attacks by the government since 2010 on the rights of disabled people under the so called austerity cuts.
Young Gypsy and Travellers Pembrokeshire (£500)
A group of Gypsies and Travellers set up to provide a place for young Gypsy & Travellers to come and access information on their rights, to socialise with other young Gypsy & Travellers and to engage and participate in wider Pembrokeshire life. They want to ensure that young Gypsy & Travellers have the right tools and information so that they can be a voice for their community and help foster a positive change in attitudes towards their community.
Coal Action Network (£500)
The Coal Action Network was founded in 2008 in response to the increasing number of opencast coal mine applications in the UK. Since then CAN has worked as a national organisation supporting communities fighting opencast coal mines. CAN works with communities which are based in the coal fields, the most active of which are in North East England, South Wales and Central Scotland.
Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh (£500)
The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh (ACE) is a self-managed social resource centre. They’re open for groups or individuals to use who are trying to make a better society and improve their lives. ACE exists to support and encourage people to take more control of their lives. They believe in people co-operating as equals to create a shared world free from exploitation and work together in the spirit of mutual aid.
Action for Trans* Health (£500)
Action for Trans Health was set up in February 2014. Since then, they have grown to be the UK’s largest (and only) campaign for patient-worker control of trans healthcare; with established groups in Manchester and Leeds, as well as groups currently being set up in Liverpool and Brighton.
Maverick and Malachi (£300)
Maverick and Malachi are young, black/mixed race, working class, Hip Hop activists. They perform their political spoken word and beat-boxing as part of political events across the UK.