SKATING ON THE EAST COAST

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged barely coping clothing, cigarette skateboards, cobholm, Community, delta four, DIY, doghead promo, drug store, eaton park, featured, gils sk8 east anglia, grassroots, local, loddon, mainstream, norwich, punk, shed, sk8, skate, skate park, street, subculture, trowse diy, uk.

by Ash

Olympics aside, it’s an interesting time for skateboarding, especially on the UK east coast. To shredder’s delight we’ve witnessed new parks crop up in Loddon and Cobholm to name a couple, and to our dismay old scene relics like the Trowse DIY spot have been levelled. New local projects such as Cigarette skateboards, Barely coping clothing, Girls sk8 east anglia, the shed and Doghead promo have been established to support the scene, whilst Norfolk’s beloved Drug store have had their iconic sign nicked shortly before closing doors and moving into a dreamy new venue.

THE UNDERGROUND MUSIC SCENE AFTER COVID

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged arts, Brexit, covid, events industry, featured, festival, funding, grassroots, independent venues, lockdown, music, music scene, music venue trust, nightlife, norwich, pandemic, punk, small business, subculture, venues.

by Ash

Your local music scene is a hive of energy which fuses together networks of people from all walks of life. It’s as much an awkward social battleground as it is an arena where ideas can be shared and explored in confidence and solidarity; it sustains avenues of expression which promote unity and mutual aid and offers sanctuary for people from disadvantaged and marginalised backgrounds to let off some steam. So as we enter a political chapter dominated by censorship and surveillance, we should all be asking ourselves what we can do to keep it alive.

THE ANTI-POLL TAX UNIONS: LESSONS IN COMMUNITY ORGANISING

Posted on January 28, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Community, Inter|national and tagged acorn, activism, All-British Anti-Poll Tax Federation, anti-poll tax unions, austerity, bailiffs, campaigning, civil disobedience, class, community organising, Danny Burns, featured, grassroots, miners strike, non-payment, poll tax, Poll Tax Rebellion, poll tax riots, protest, Thatcher, Tories, uk, unions.

By Niahl Hubbard

When activists look back to the movement that arose to challenge the introduction of the Poll Tax, they will see it as one of ordinary people taking on the establishment and coming out victorious. Whilst the rioting in Trafalgar Square and similar confrontations between police and protestors often takes centre stage in our collective memory of this period, there is the risk of overlooking the grassroots and community led resistance that fought every step of the way during the Poll Tax’s introduction – the resistance of the Anti-Poll Tax Unions.

WHAT NEXT AFTER THE SIEGE OF CAPITOL HILL?

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged attack, Bannon, Biden, black lives matter, BLM, capitol hill, Community, conspiracy, coup, education, featured, grassroots, mutual aid, QAnon, riot, shaman, siege, terrorism, Trump, USA, violence, White House.

by Sarah Edgcumbe and Clyde Collins

The storming of Capitol Hill in Washington on the 6^th January and the ongoing aftermath has dominated western media over the past few days with good reason. White Americans fuelled by bizarre QAnon conspiracy theories and egged on by Trump’s false narrative of fraudulent election results, forced their way into the building, ransacked the interior, hung confederate flags, stole items and generally behaved like a bunch of supremacist football hooligans who had been binge-drinking for several hours, and whose team had just lost. In doing so however, they demonstrated the extent to which they have become empowered by Trump – and that is terrifying. When Trump leaves the White House (hopefully in handcuffs; tears streaking his fake tan), his manifest right-wing extremist legacy is going to remain present for years to come.

SOLIDARITY NOT CHARITY: NORFOLK AGAINST HOLIDAY HUNGER

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged benefit cuts, benefits, child poverty, community groups, coronavirus, Covid-19, featured, food poverty, free school meals, grassroots, Great Yarmouth, lockdown, marcus rashford, Mile Cross, norfolk, Norfolk Against Holiday Hunger, norwich, Norwich Food Hub, poverty, school holidays, solidarity, trade unions, Unite, Unite Community, Universal Credit, welfare, working class.

By Sean Meleady

While Marcus Rashford has been making headlines with the campaign that led to a government u-turn on free meals vouchers, community groups are working hard to make sure that free meals vouchers are provided to families that need them during every school holiday, not just while the Coronavirus pandemic is in the news.

MUTUAL AID IN ACTION: NORWICH’S COMMUNITY RESPONSE TO COVID

Posted on July 8, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged charities, Community, community organising, coronavirus, Covid-19, digital divide, featured, Gateway Vineyard Church, grassroots, Hellesdon, Hellesdon Helping Hands, isolation, Lionwood Schools, lockdown, mutual aid, norwich, Norwich City Council, Norwich Soup Movement, pandemic, Pilling Park Community Centre, school holidays, schools, The Pantry, thorpe hamlet, Thorpe Helping Hands, Thorpe St Andrew, Trowse, volunteering.

By Sean Meleady

In Norwich, as in many other parts of the country, mutual aid groups set up in local communities through Facebook and Whatsapp have been helping people through the Covid-19 crisis in Norwich. These groups have been particularly important for the elderly, vulnerable, single parents and those asked to shield themselves by staying at home.

ACORN NORWICH – THE UNION TAKING ON DODGY LANDLORDS

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged Acorn Norwich, ACORN Tenants' Union, activism, austerity, Brighton, Bristol, campaigning, coronavirus, Covid-19, Dereham, direct action, featured, flatfair, Generation Rent, Goldsmith street, grassroots, health and safety, housing, housing costs, landlords, letting agents, manchester, member defense, norwich, Norwich City Council, online activism, renting, residents, Sheffield, student accommodation, students, UEA, unions, wages, workers.

By Sean Meleady

Norwich may call itself a ‘fine city’, but this isn’t always the case for renters. Despite some positive stories, such as the Goldsmith Street social housing project, many tenants find life in the city tough.

THERE’S MORE TO STUDENT ACTIVISM THAN #PEOPLESVOTE

Posted on February 20, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged Amatey Doku, Brexit, bursaries, class, defend education, featured, fossil free, Free Education, george osborne, grants, grassroots, guardian, higher education, history, marketisation, NUS, politics, Remain, solidarity, student activism, student movement, student politics, students, students' unions, The People's Vote, tony blair, tuition fees.

By Robyn Banks

Amatey Doku is right: student activism isn’t dead. In a recently published interview with the Guardian, the NUS Vice President of Higher Education proclaimed that students’ response to Brexit and their engagement with the People’s Vote campaign has shown that student activism is thriving anew, after years without a “unifying cause”. But what about the fight for free education that has been active on our campuses since 2012? For many activists in the last few generations of students, it was the issue that brought us together and gave us the skills to take the fight to the powerful. But for Doku, it was too “inward looking” to inspire a “genuine” movement.

BEYOND BURNOUT: TOWARDS COMPASSIONATE ACTIVISM

Posted on August 14, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged activism, burnout, campaigning, compassion, competition, cooperation, featured, grassroots, health, identity, mental health, movement, neoliberalism, politics, postgraduate, protest, social comparison.

By Anonymous

Being an ‘activist’ is a crucial part of my identity. It can be a difficult thing to be, in a society where ‘politics’ is a dirty word and its practice is often at best frowned upon, but I’m glad I’ve made it to this place. To be part of wider movements, making friends with incredibly talented, dedicated and inspiring people and, in my own flawed, stumbling way, trying to make the world a little bit better, is an enormous joy and privilege that not everyone gets to enjoy.

REFUGEE SOLIDARITY IN THE FACE OF THE RISING FAR RIGHT

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged activism, Are you Syrious, Calais, Chios, Chris Jarvis, Dublin Convention, Enoch Powell, EU, featured, government, grassroots, Greece, Italy, lobby, migrant, migration, NGO, Owen Jones, populism, pressure, racism, Refugee Rights Europe, refugees, right wing, Shoufu Collective, turkey, uk, volunteer.

by Sarah Edgcumbe

Owen Jones recently pointed out that the far right is now at its strongest since the 1930s. A horrifying reality of today’s populist Europe. These groups have been unfailingly and cynically opportunistic in using terrorist attacks in Europe to galvanize hatred against Muslims, whilst presenting themselves as protecting white European innocents from the depravity of the Qu’ran, or simply as “not racist” concerned citizens who feel that we should help “our own” (read: white) homeless before helping others. This mindset has contributed to the election of far right governments in Poland, Hungary and Italy and demonstrates that we should not view these groups as fringe street-movements – they are effecting political change with horrifying efficiency through influencing voters.

Mainstream media is in on this, of course. As Chris Jarvis wrote in October 2016, the media’s reaction to refugees and migrants has been nothing short of inflammatory. The influence of mistruths presented in the media has led to vilification of refugees and migrants. In our failure to protect vulnerable people who are unable to seek protection in their country of origin, we have failed to learn history’s lesson. Enoch Powell would be proud of us. We should all be fucking ashamed of ourselves.Continue Reading

grassroots

THE UNDERGROUND MUSIC SCENE AFTER COVID

by Ash

THE ANTI-POLL TAX UNIONS: LESSONS IN COMMUNITY ORGANISING

WHAT NEXT AFTER THE SIEGE OF CAPITOL HILL?

by Sarah Edgcumbe and Clyde Collins

SOLIDARITY NOT CHARITY: NORFOLK AGAINST HOLIDAY HUNGER

By Sean Meleady

MUTUAL AID IN ACTION: NORWICH’S COMMUNITY RESPONSE TO COVID

By Sean Meleady

ACORN NORWICH – THE UNION TAKING ON DODGY LANDLORDS

THERE’S MORE TO STUDENT ACTIVISM THAN #PEOPLESVOTE

REFUGEE SOLIDARITY IN THE FACE OF THE RISING FAR RIGHT

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