Meet Your Clerkenwell Community Organisers
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
EC1 ECHO OCT/NOV 2020 N 6 FREE NEWS ART HISTORY EC1Echo.co.uk Connecting people New photographs The incredible @EC1Echo through the shed light and shade story of the “father medium of coffee on Clerkenwell’s estates of India” in EC1 EC1Echo@ /EC1Echo P 5 P 10–11 P 14–15 peelinstitute.org.uk Damaris Louezi Helawit Hailemariam Nermin Shefik Hobie Walker Pia Richards Scarlett Gregory Meet your Clerkenwell Community Organisers Sara Bloch of The Peel explains the roles of the new community organisers while inside, each one explains what they hope to achieve Over the next few months you’re social isolation and stronger bonds vision for a thriving community, we the act of listening we’ve met many likely to see our new team of Com- between its people and places. can use their collective power to locals who wanted to launch their munity Organisers out and about Community organising is the work shake things up for the good of the own projects to get people talking talking with locals. They’re out of bringing people together to take whole neighbourhood. and bring the community together. there because they want to hear your action around their common con- Over the last couple of years we’ve We have helped them to organise views on how to make Clerkenwell cerns. We believe that if we listen to already started building relation- a range of activities including an a more connected area, with less the issues that people face and their ships with local people. Through Continued on Page-5 EC1 ECHO NO.6 Advertisement N 6 NEWS 2 Credit Tim Ronalds Architects THE SEKFORDE OCT / Carefree, not The Sekforde, 34 Sekforde Street EC1R 0HA NOV careless 0207 250 0010 2020 Since lockdown EC1 has remained thesekforde.com 1st Oct 30th Nov a hub for social change. Bella Saltiel [email protected] talks to Clerkenwell charity Carefree Instagram: @the_sekforde about the nature of care after Covid-19 Full Full Moon Moon 100% / 0.49 100% / 0.5 are is the work that makes all other forms of work possible,” says Charlotte EC1 Echo is the Newman, director of Care- area's free community “free. ThisC quote, taken from American labour newspaper. We publish activist Ai-jen Poo, encapsulates the way that bi-monthly and carers, despite being the backbone to any func- distribute 7,500 free tioning economy, are often sidelined. Carefree, “This place is copies of each issue – a fledgling charity that turns vacant hotel rooms and we will continue to into short breaks for full-time, unpaid carers, something of do so during the ongoing aims to redress the balance. Entrenched in the caregiving economy, Char- a gem in an public health crisis. lotte has been privy to the limits of the gov- ernment’s response to unpaid carers. Covid-19 unassuming Publisher really ‘shone a light’ on “the cultural narrative David Floyd around care”, she says. part of town” Editor A while after lockdown started, society began Oliver Bennett to recognise the work of NHS staff and care- Designer workers, clapping for the NHS and carers Jonathan Duncan outside homes across the country. But, as the “It keeps all pandemic continues to rage on, Charlotte adds Head of Operations that the “nine million people who provide the charm Paige Ballmi Above the line care within the home and provide that kind of Engagement Manager backbone to our health and social care system” he House of Illustration – said The buildings are themselves of huge still go largely unrecognised. of being the Penny Dampier to be the world’s only museum historic importance. The New River That could be because the labour of domes- Contributors dedicated to illustration – is set Head remains much as it has been for tic care is unseen and largely behind closed neighbourhood's Anastasia Georgousis to move from King’s Cross to almost four centuries and began life as doors. But it’s also that there is a need to talk Antzela Osmenai Tone of Clerkenwell’s most interesting a vital hub bringing clean water into about the role of unpaid carers in ways that best pub” Suzanne Sullivan and historic sites: the New River Head. London from Hertfordshire. Within is people understand. Sara Bloch This group of four historic buildings, London’s only surviving windmill and Naming is part of that and “key workers” are Quoted from Evening Chris Walker which previously had no public access, an engine house, dating from 1768. The teachers, social workers, doctors and nurses, Standard's 50 Best Pubs Jonathon Green was earmarked by the HoI’s founder, Centre is designed by architect Tim all labels connected to paid jobs, whereas unpaid in London Bella Saltiel illustrator Sir Quentin Blake. The site Ronalds, who also oversaw the refur- domestic labour is considered part of the chaos David Chapman is set to have four times the amount of bishment of Ironmonger Row Baths. of everyday life. Despite its normalcy – three in Emile Holba public space as the HoI’s current home Said Ronalds: “The ingredients are five of us will become an unpaid carer at some Jeremy Warren in Granary Square, King’s Cross, where there to make a new cultural space of point in our lives – Charlotte says there remains Professor Inderjeet Parmar it has been since 2014 and it will be called great significance.” “a collective responsibility to recognise that com- Brogan McPherson the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. The Centre aims to encourage illus- munity and the public service that they do.” Yvonne Goff Courtney At its New River Head HQ , the Centre will tration, so its presence will have educa- This is a time when the carers that Charlotte Mark Aston have four exhibition galleries, an education tional benefits for local schools and the speaks to are completely “burned out” and centre, offices, £8 million she suggests that a solution could be to “join CONTACT café, shop and plan begins together those individual stories to build a half an acre next year with sense of what their collective role is.” Email of outdoor an opening Building on the experiences that we have all [email protected] space, making date set of had in lockdown might help with this. Parents Post it the world’s autumn 2022. working from home over lockdown are more 7–11 Coppermill Lane, biggest space Sir Quentin aware of the role teachers play as caregivers. Walthamstow E17 7HA dedicated to said: “I am Living at home with family, elderly relatives illustration. enormously or vulnerable friends will have exposed nearly ADVERTISING Along with proud to have all of us to the experience of providing care nearby Sadler’s my name asso- while simultaneously juggling the demands Contact Klaudia Kiss: Wells Theatre, ciated with of our own lives. The shaking up of society Call 020 8521 7956 it will create a this interna- in the pandemic has meant there is “the pos- Email considerable tional home sibility and the opportunity to use what has [email protected] cultural cluster for an art happened to really anchor, a reimagining of in the north- which I know how we support care work in the future eco- EC1 Echo is a member of IMPRESS: The Independent Monitor of The ern part of Clerkenwell and as well as and love, and for artists who speak in a nomic and social levels within our society.” Press. For more information on the EC1 Echo’s complaints policy and exhibitions, will house Sir Quentin Blake’s myriad of visual languages, but are under- Living through a pandemic has stretched all how to make a complaint visit: EC1Echo.co.uk/complaints archive of more than 40,000 works, some stood by all. It is going to be amazing.” our imaginations – perhaps we can use this on permanent display. Visit houseofillustration.org.uk time to envisage a truly caring economy. EC1 ECHO NO.6 October/November 2020 NEWS 4 NEWS 5 Olympic Park. The term ‘Sili- con Roundabout’ was a bit of Tunnel Continued from Page-1 playing in Spa Fields, 3 Corners and my a joke but people liked the fact primary school, Hugh Myddelton. All of Whole latte love that the area was a bit gritty.” online baking club, a street party, a gardening them remain important to shaping the per- Close to the City of London, vision group, this local paper – the EC1 Echo – and son I am today. I don’t think that there are it was convenient for entre- many more. enough community events in the area and as preneurs seeking funding and ith the news Our Community Organisers are here to make a Community Organiser I want to help there EC1 resident David Chapman the transport links were good. that all ven- it easier for you to contribute to community to be more activities and events so that aims to connect people through Now, adds Nathan, the idea ues must take life in Clerkenwell and to this end we’re asking people feel more at home and connected has been “somewhat eroded. the names readers: do you want to help community life to each other in the area. the medium of coffee It is a bigger cluster now, but Wof guests in case of further thrive in Clerkenwell? Do you have an idea here’s a new way to that we realised how long we not necessarily a better one. outbreaks of Covid-19, the that could bring people together and reduce Damaris Louezi meet people in Clerken- had been on the call.” Follow- Lots of the firms were SMEs hospitality industry’s return isolation in our neighbourhood? If you would I have lived in Clerkenwell for seven years.