The Elephant & Castle area in South London, one of the last remaining central locations that is still inhabited by some less well-off communities, has seen massive changes in the past years. Pioneers of regeneration have “discovered” the area as an “ultra hot-spot” for investment, and the local authorities are eager to serve their needs. This leaves the diverse and organic communities around E&C confronted with soaring rents, demolition of social housing and displacement – in short, gentrification has kicked in.
We, a group of social centre collectives, together with many other local initiatives, refuse to accept rip-off housing and social cleansing! Instead of luxury flats and fancy office towers, we propose a radical and free space for community self-organisation!
As such, we will invite you all to our upcoming self-organised social space in the Elephant & Castle area. We aim to create a vibrant community centre which will serve the true needs of the Elephant’s residents. Our space will be open to use for all groups, initiatives and individuals that seek to provide alternative services to the community (people’s kitchen, clothes swap, education, music and art) or need space for projects, self-organisation and collective action. It will be open all week, to locals and Londoners and who want to pop in for a tea, discuss matters, attend our events or just have a good chat!
Come down to the Elephant and visit our space when it will open in one or two weeks. We need help with cleaning, setting up the space, putting on events! If you have donations (kitchen stuff, clothes, books, material, etc), bring it along!
If you would like to use free and open space for your and the communities’ purposes, please let us know!
Keep your eyes open and use your networks to spread the news. We will keep you updated!
Library Street London, House of Brag and more collectives to come…
http://houseofbrag.wordpress.com/
http://librarystreetlondon.wordpress.com/
