Event - Do Something: Kajal Odedra with Minnie Rahman

Event - Client Earth – James Thornton & Martin Goodman

An Oral History of Centerprise – tour and talk

Event - Do Something: Kajal Odedra with Minnie Rahman

Event - Client Earth – James Thornton & Martin Goodman

An Oral History of Centerprise – tour and talk

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10.10.2019 by Pages of Hackney //

Join as for a discussion of people power and grass-roots activism with change.org's UK Director, Kajal Odedra. Kajal will be reading from her new book, DO SOMETHING, before being joined in conversation by Minnie Rahman.

People power works and is changing the world around us.

This is a user's guide to activism by one of the UK's biggest names in grass-roots campaigning. Illustrated with lessons from the real world, it is a guide to creating change for anyone who has ever asked themselves 'why hasn't anyone done something about that?'

We are taught to believe that only a small group of people in society have the ability to change laws and company policies. That's simply not true any longer - each of is capable of using our experiences to change the world. We just need to use that thing that makes us different, and learn how to channel it.

Having worked as a campaigner for the last 12 years, Kajal Odedra of change.org - which is used by 17 million people in the UK - has learned the tricks of the trade that have traditionally been held in circles of power, and believes that everyone should know how to speak up and be heard. Her mission is to show people how to use their voice to make their community, politicians and CEOs take notice.

Do Something is a blueprint for creating change; an indispensable guide to inspire anyone feeling frustrated, no matter what the issue, to stand up and do something.

Kajal Odedra is UK Director at Change.org, the world’s largest online petition website with 200 million users worldwide and over 17 million in the UK, where she has helped strategise movements such as the petition to end tampon tax and the New Era Housing campaign. Kajal has worked in the campaigns and tech sector for over 10 years, is an advisor for the women in STEM group Ada’s List and founded the People of Colour initiative. Kajal lives and works in London.

Minnie Rahman is a writer and campaigner specialising in migrant’s rights, climate change and social justice. After working in both the European and UK Parliament for 5 years as an expert in Government policy, she moved on to help co-ordinate the campaign to uncover the Windrush scandal with the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. Minnie is now leading on campaigns to scrap the “hostile environment” and to get new rights for undocumented migrants. She is also the creator of Inclusive Book Club.

07.06.2017 by Pages of Hackney //

We're excited to host Hackney based activist lawyer James Thornton and writer/poet Martin Goodman to discuss their new book Client Earth.

Environmentally, our planet lacks the laws to keep it safe and those laws we do have are feebly enforced. Every new year is the hottest in human history, while forest, reef, ice, tundra, and species are disappearing forever. It is easy to lose all hope. Who will stop the planet from committing ecological suicide? The UN? Governments? Activists? Corporations? Engineers? Scientists? Whoever, environmental laws need to be enforceable and enforced. Step forward a fresh breed of passionately purposeful environmental lawyers. They provide new rules to legislatures, see that they are enforced, and keep us informed. They tackle big business to ensure money flows into cultural change, because money is the grammar of business just as science is the grammar of nature. At the head of this new legal army stands James Thornton, who takes governments to court, and wins. And his client is the Earth. With Client Earth, we travel from Poland to Ghana, from Alaska to China, to see how citizens can use public interest law to protect their planet. Foundations and philanthropists support the law group ClientEarth because they see, plainly and brightly, that the law is a force all parties recognize. Lawyers who take the Earth as their client are exceptional and inspirational. They give us back our hope.

James Thornton is the founder of Client Earth a pioneering not-for-profit legal firm based in Hackney. The New Statesman named James as one of ten people who could change the world. As well as exploring environmental law, his book tells his personal story: as well as being a lawyer, he also is a Zen Buddhist priest, a published poet and a violinist. He had the idea of founding Client Earth after meeting with the Dalai Lama for an hour to ask how he could do the most good in the world.

Martin Goodman is the author of nine books of fiction and nonfiction. He holds the chair of Creative Writing at the University of Hull, where he is director of the Philip Larkin Centre for Poetry and Creative Writing.

05.07.2017 by Pages of Hackney //

On Sunday 7^th May, celebrate the launch of the ‘A Hackney Autobiography’ mobile app and website and the new book, The Lime Green Mystery: an oral history of the Centerprise co-operative.

Meet at 3pm at Sutton House for the 'Inside Out Homerton' audiotour, which features in the brand new app.

From 5pm – 7:30pm gather at Sutton House to hear speakers [TBC] engaged in radical cultural and community work today speak in response to The Lime Green Mystery and a hackney autobiography. Free copies of The Lime Green Mystery and support downloading the free app are available.

To book these either of these free events or pre-order a free book, please contact info@nullon-the-record.org.uk .

More on 'A Hackney Autobiography' app:

Poetic sat-nav, mapping Hackney through the writing and memories of its people. A hackney autobiography features:

Four audio walks, each with original illustrations and music:

Food and frontlines: Dalston
Inside out: Birth, mental health and institutions in Homerton
Working women's bus tour: Hoxton
The island: Evering Road

Over fifty bite-sized stories about creativity, education and resistance in Hackney. All content was published or inspired by Centerprise, a radical cultural and community hub, on Kingsland High Road (1971-2012).

More on the 'Inside Out Homerton' audiowalk:

Explore birth and death, mental health and creativity, inside and out of the institution. Voices arise unbidden from the music of the modern city: invisible telephones, crossed wires, radio static, broken water, tinkling glass, fragments of song. This audio walk blurs boundaries between auditory hallucination and external sound. Put on your headphones for full immersion.

In track 1 you will meet the odd couple whose back-and-forth will guide you. The other voices represent people associated with Centerprise and Core Arts, from the pre-NHS era to the present day.

This is a unique opportunity to do the audiowalk as a group, with some of the people featured in it.

More about The Lime Green Mystery

Although it was the only bookshop in Hackney when it opened in 1971, Centerprise offered more than the chance to buy books. Inside, local people could join a writers’ workshop, mount a campaign, learn to read and write, get welfare advice, record local history, publish their poetry, or simply nurse a cup of tea all day in the café that doubled as a community space.

Through the memories and reflections of many of the people involved, The Lime Green Mystery charts how the Centerprise co-operative (1971 – 1993) attempted to put radical ideas about education, culture and community work into practice. It explores issues of representation, power and collective management and will appeal to those interested in radical community organisations, grassroots bookselling and publishing, the adult literacy movement, London’s social history, and to people involved in community-based cultural and co-operative initiatives today.

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