Community talk: ‘The Love And Labour of Community Organising’

Friday, June 9th 2023 at 6 pm

Nachbarschaftsgarten Kreuzberg, Entry Corner Zülicher Straße/ Golßenerstraße, 10965 Berlin

This event will take place in English spoken language.

With Soli-KÜFA at 6pm and DJ-Set with DJ Smiley after the Talk!

[O]ne of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone.

-bell hooks

Communities have been and continue to be spaces of coming together for many, but for others, they also signify spaces of resistance, love, care and, often, a tool of survival. Nevertheless, the required labour to built communities in the first place and continuous efforts to sustain them are often rendered invisible.

In the context of this year’s topic labour within our project #CommunitiesSolidarischDenken (Engl. Thinking of communities in solidarity), we would like to warmly invite you to our community event The Love And Labour of Community Organising on Friday, June 9^th 2023, from 6 pm in the neighbourhood garden Kreuzberg (Nachbarschaftsgarten Kreuzberg).

In this light, this event revolves centrally around how categorisation and definitions affect the community (building) at large along following questions:

In what way is community organising considered or not considered to be work/labour?
What does it do with us or for/against us if it is not perceived nor acknowledged as such? Does this follow a well-known pattern? Or does it open possibilities of freedom?
What kind of labour do we actually mean when we speak of labour in this case? Which facets of such labour should be highlighted or were being made invisible?
And how could we include navigating these questions in our own every-day practice?

There is a growing awareness about how forms of work reinforce and partly substitute hierarchies of power, systems and legacies of oppression. Therefore, we would like to take the occasion to not only discuss alliances and coalitions of labour but also precarious, illegalised, invisible, unprotected labour from an intersectional perspective and its forms of resistance and care for each other within community building.

Togther with our special guests Marlize Andre, Clementine Burnley and Lucy Ng’ang’a (Break Isolation Group/IWS), we would like to offer the space for an open community conversation in which we can together produce, exchange and pass on knowledge, elaborate on it and contribute to necessary frameworks for successful alliance politics, coalitions and communities.

We’ll be welcoming you from 6pm for a Soli-KÜFA. The community conversation will take place between 7.00pm – 9.00pm and afterwards we will end the night with some dancing and an extra nice DJ-Set by DJ Smiley.

Our guests

Lucy Ng’ang’a

Lucy Ng’ang’a is an activist in IWS, a member and the Project Coordinator of Break Isolation Group (BIG), a self organized group by refugee women* for refugee women in International Women* Space( IWS).

BIG aims at breaking isolation, building the capacity of refugee women* to empower them navigate through the Asylum system.
We organize workshops, peer-peer empowerment activities, Lager mobilization visits, Soup kitchen program, soft skills/self development, self care and wellness, nurturing leadership and entrepreneurial skills among the women whereas embracing diversity through queer and cultural inclusitivity.
As women*, we create a platform and build our capacity to speak in our own voices, express ourselves freely, for us and about us and denounce others speaking about us on our behalf without including us through the Lager audio reports.

Marlize Andre

Marlize Andre is a medical professional, activist, and advocate for marginalized communities. With a focus on addressing systemic discrimination in healthcare, Marlize works tirelessly to center the needs and wishes of marginalized communities. They are particularly passionate about advocating for the rights of transgender women and increasing healthcare accessibility for marginalized populations. Marlize’s expertise lies in migration policies and their intersection with healthcare for transgender, intersex, and non-binary persons of color. Through their work, Marlize aims to create an equitable healthcare system that addresses systemic discrimination and uplifts marginalized communities.

Registration:

This event is a BIPoC safe space and therefore, explicitly aimed at people who identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color.

Please register at contact@xartsplitta.net by June 7th, 2023. 

This event is explicitly addressing self-identification of people affected by racism, so we are very interested why you would like to participate.
It would be great if you could write something about the following points in your registration:

• In what way have you previously dealt with the topic so far?
• How do you situate/position yourself within this discussion?
• Do you have needs or require support to participate (e.g. language assistance etc)?

Where to find Nachbarschaftsgarten Kreuzberg?

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This event takes place within the LADS funded project #CommunitiesSolidarischDenken.