Highlighting community groups and spaces
For us, community is vital. Our neighbourhoods and communities are the building blocks of the new world we want to create. That world can't be built if there's no sense of solidarity. In a time where the services we rely upon are failing to deliver, community groups stepping up to the plate to not only fill the gaps, but also bring everyone in the neighbourhood they operate in together, are more vital than ever.
We’ve written a number of posts about the importance of building a sense of community solidarity at the grassroots. Below are links to three of them, with a key paragraph from each post to give you a flavour of where we’re coming from:
Don't let them divide us 25.11.24
What we absolutely have to bear in mind is that the bastards who presume to rule over us do not want their power diluted by successful neighbourhood projects that offer the possibility of bringing power right down to the grassroots. They want us atomised, even fearful of each other and reliant on their governance to frame our lives. The last thing they want is for us to be offering any challenge to their malign desire to totally control as many aspects of our lives as they can get away with. Which is why they and their compliant mates in the media foster a toxic climate of division in a bid to set us at each others throats.
A sense of belonging 27.10.24
When we talk about building a strong sense of community and belonging, we're not talking about a homogenous one where nothing ever changes. We're talking about a sense of community that recognises the variety of people that make it up. Regardless of where someone may have originally come from, if they live in a neighbourhood for any length of time, they're a part of that community, with the benefits and attendant responsibilities and obligations that go along with it. What we have to be alert to are the efforts of the divide and rule merchants on all sides who are sowing the seeds of division for their own nefarious purposes.
Building neighbourhood solidarity and resilience 23.10.24
This explains why we support community projects that bring people together, regardless of their backgrounds. At the end of the day, whoever we are and wherever we're from, we all want to live in a neighbourhood where people look out for and care for each other. A neighbourhood that in an age of failing public services can provide networks of support for its more vulnerable members. A neighbourhood that's making steps to take control of its food supply with community gardens/allotments, community food kitchens, food buying groups and the like. A neighbourhood that once it gains a degree of self confidence about looking after itself, will start to ask some searching questions about power, who exercises it and how it has to be brought right down to the grassroots.
We maintain a directory of grassroots projects: The Directory. The links below are from the community groups and community spaces and resources sections:
Community groups
BRISTOL - NORTH
BRISTOL - SOUTH
Inns Court Community & Family Centre
TRESA (Totterdown residents) - X
KEYNSHAM
Community at 67 (Keynsham) - Facebook
Community spaces & resources
Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft
The listings above are an attempt to build a comprehensive database of what’s going on across the Avon region when it comes to community groups doing what they can to make their neighbourhoods better places to live.
It’s not a comprehensive list though, far from it in fact. To be brutally, honest, it's hardly scratching the surface!
This listing is a work in progress with a lot that needs to be added. So, if you're involved in or run a community group in Avon and you’re not mentioned, please feel free to send the details of what you do to us and it will be added to the directory.