First 12 groups receive funding via new participatory grant-making Grassroots Movements fund

We're pleased to introduce the first 12 groups to receive funding via our Grassroots Movements fund, a pilot project to distribute £1.6 million to grassroots social movements.

You can read more about the first year of the fund here.

492 Korna Klub

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492 Korna Klub formed in January 2016 and are an experienced network of African, Caribbean Asian and White Immigrant artists, facilitators, and community influencers from South London that use the arts to create a dialogue about social, economic and political concerns. They partner with community organisations to provide creative workshops and projects that support Black communities to live with the uncertainty and complexity that surrounds them. With the funding they will work to address the impact of high levels of violence in Angell Town Estate and the surrounding areas and in particular work to improve the mental health of young people. Local young people will co-design activities to test evidence-based theories broadly around trauma-informed violence prevention, review and redesign local services and learn how to train youth practitioners in the activities they have helped design.

www.492kornaklub.com 

Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living

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Briston Reclaiming Independent Liviny (BRIL) is a small grassroots group set up by and for Disabled people. They aspire to reclaim the meaning of ‘Independent Living’, as originally defined by Disabled people, to prevent the term being hijacked by local authorities and the media who use phrases like “choice and control” and “independent living” to justify regressive policies, such as cuts to social care. As they do not receive local authority funding, they are free to hold their local council to account through their campaigns where they believe they are not carrying out their legal or moral duties. BRIL works hard to enable other Disabled people and allies to join them to bring about change and will be using funding towards this. BRIL aims to challenge all forms of oppression, working to the social model of disability. Their accessible and non-hierarchical working practices reflect their values around equality and inclusivity.

www.bril.uk 

Decrim Now

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A campaign that formed out of the migrant sex worker-led workers’ cooperative, x:talk, Decrim Now is an umbrella coalition of sex-worker led organisations. This project focuses on the decriminalisation of sex work, which is essential for the safety and rights of sex workers as it increases their power in their interactions with clients, managers, police and landlords.

The Decrim Now campaign strategy aims to build grassroots support for the decriminalisation of sex work across multiple constituencies and institutions including; feminist organisations, university students, violence against women and girls sector, LGBTQ sector, trade unions and local Labour Party branches. The upcoming general election in May 2024, provides an opportunity for Decrim Now to coordinate a year long campaign to build the necessary momentum and build grassroots support for legislative reform.

www.decrimnow.org.uk

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)

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Disabled People Against Cuts was set up in 2010 in response to the disproportionate impact of austerity and welfare reform programmes on disabled people. DPAC is perhaps best known for their campaigns, direct actions and protests and now, with funding, plans to set up a sustainable grassroots Deaf and Disabled People (DDP) led think-tank. Through the think tank they will amplify the voices of people with lived experience so they can meaningfully inform relevant research and policy-making that affects Disabled people. Some other aims include enabling greater collaboration, collective thinking and confidence, leading to a stronger movement and more innovative ideas on transforming society and tackling the root causes of disability injustice.  

www.dpac.uk.net

Glasgow Autonomous Space

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Glasgow Autonomous Space (GAS) was established in 2015 by a small group of activists with a desire to create an autonomous social centre that provides space and resources for groups working to fight capitalism and other forms of oppression. Over 40 groups are hosted at GAS every month and it is run by those using the space, non-hierarchically and not for profit. It is a space of intersectional solidarity, friendship, action, care and capacity building across the activist community of Glasgow. GAS supports learning for everyone involved, to give them skills in activism, care, peer support and sustainable energy. The funds are being used to improve accessibility, facilities, training and movement building for grassroots groups.

www.glasgowautonomous.weebly.com 

Hackney Account

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Hackney Account formed out of a Hackney Young person’s Stop and Search monitoring group in 2018 as a means to reimagine different ways of addressing unjust policing in the borough and in London more broadly. Account has been at the forefront of local and national campaigns around policing and has the specific intention to move beyond forms of piecemeal institutional reform. Core areas of work include the delivery of legal, political and historical training, the hosting of collaborative events and community forums, and the development of a casework service. Account will be using funding to continue its work supporting young people to lead the movement to challenge, scrutinise, dismantle, and replace systems of racist and unjust policing. 

www.accounthackney.org 

Living Rent 

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Living Rent was initially a campaign group which won important changes to housing legislation in Scotland. It became a union in 2016 and is led by its members, who are private, social and council tenants. Living Rent now has over 3000 members throughout Scotland who support each other through individual issues, campaign on local problems and push for structural changes to improve tenants’ rights and more globally for the decommodification of housing and other ‘public goods’. They will use funding for a project which will support Living Rent members to feel confident to lead outreach activities based on deep listening, igniting rage and desire for justice, and working through differences. The project will also support members to learn about, practice and introduce more transformative approaches to conflict

www.livingrent.org

Northern Police Monitoring Project

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The Northern Police Monitoring Project (NPMP) formed in 2012, sparked by a groundswell of community dissatisfaction following several incidents of police harassment, racism, and violence in Manchester. The project seeks to offer a forum through which communities can: collectively challenge police harms and injustices, advance challenges to official narratives on criminal justice, and – as part of a growing abolitionist ecosystem - work to imagine alternatives to the current reliance on police, policing, and prisons.The funding will be used to support the ongoing work of NPMP,  including enhancing organisational structures and ensuring their sustainability and wellbeing, their ongoing campaign work and embedding of care in the organisation.

www.npolicemonitor.co.uk 

The People's Empowerment Alliance for Custom House (PEACH)

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The People’s Empowerment Alliance for Custom House, better known as PEACH, was founded in 2013. Custom House has been living in the shadow of a failed regeneration for over 20 years. This has left a legacy of bad, unstable housing, private and public sector abandonment and large numbers of people moving in and out of the area. PEACH take a community organising approach to achieving big change for their members, including door knocking and outreach, developing people as leaders, building teams and making demands and demonstrating their power in numbers with actions. The funding will enable them to develop the infrastructure they need to make organising sustainable in the long-term through building accessible and democratic tools, guidelines and resources that enable communities to unionise; build power and win change. 

www.peach-e16.org.uk

Peaks of Colour

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Peaks of Colour is a Peak District-based nature-for-healing community group, by and for people of colour only. Only eight per cent of England’s land is legally accessible, making it the country with the most concentrated land ownership in the world. This, along with rife rural racism, results in POC feeling a separation from nature and the powerful healing it offers. Through their monthly hikes, and seasonal walkshops - creative and holistic workshops in nature for self-identifying women/gender diverse POC - they explore abolitionist, nature-led routes to healing and justice for people with gendered and racialised trauma. Funding will support them to facilitate POC-led hikes through their Walking Club, and POC-led walkshops through their Healing Club. The funding will allow them to expand and deepen the impact of their movement, which fights for racial, gendered and land justice.

www.peaksofcolour.org 

Unis Resist Border Controls (URBC)

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Unis Resist Border Controls (URBC) was established in 2016 because of the lived-experiences of a racialised migrant student whose immigration status was weaponised in UK higher education. URBC has since established itself as a migrant-led, national campaign of university staff and students (majority non-EU and EU migrants) working to end the hostile environment policy in UK Universities. Their main work includes casework & campaigning to support migrant students and university staff; training to activists, student unions, and trade unions; research into how the hostile environment policy is enacted within higher education and direct action. With the funding URBC seeks to run workshops to upskill legal professionals, trade union members & activists in resisting the weaponisation of immigration status against migrant staff and students in UK higher education. 

linktr.ee/urbc  

Sex Workers Union (was United Sex Workers)

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Sex Workers Union is a trade union branch of sex workers across England, Scotland, and Wales established by sex workers in 2018. Sex workers have very few legal rights: criminalisation and stigmatisation of sex workers’ labour makes it challenging to access or fight for even the most basic of human and worker rights, resulting in working conditions which are often unsafe, isolated and precarious. SWU is focused on creating fundamental changes to the living and working conditions of sex workers in the UK. They organise their workplaces and facilitate community building within the industry and beyond as they build solidarity with other precarious workers across the labour movement. Funding will be used to strengthen their movement via access to in-person meetings, stipends, research and networking, community & knowledge building workshops, membership wellbeing, and legal/casework support. 

www.swunion.co.uk