Grassroots Struggle Against Sexism and Racism: an International Comparison
Saturday 31 January, 9.30am-5.30pm
Bolivar Hall, Venezuelan Embassy, 54 Grafton Way, London W1 5AJ

A Black family in the White House: what power can we draw for our movement? What can we learn from our own struggle by comparing it with the struggle of others?

SPEAKERS from: AFRICA and IRAQ on war-torn families; BOLIVIA on Indigenous communities confronting the white elite; GUYANA on a people divided along race lines; INDIA on Dalit and Tribal women; HAITI on rural and sweatshop workers; PALESTINE on women's resistance to occupation; the UK on seeking asylum and confronting racist assault; the US on immigrants' rights, and Black communities fighting multinationals and the death penalty; VENEZUELA on defending the gains of the revolution.

Our Debt to Haitians - the First to Abolish Slavery
Sunday 1 February, 10.30am-5.30pm
Bolivar Hall, Venezuelan Embassy, 54 Grafton Way, London W1 5AJ

Independent since their revolution in 1804, the Black Jacobins of Haiti have blazed an anti-imperialist, anti-racist trail for us all. They have been punished for their boldness. But despite a US coup in 2004 which overthrew Haiti's first democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a UN occupying army, murders and rapes, the imprisonment and disappearance of organizers like Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, four hurricanes and near starvation, the Haitian grassroots, beginning with women, maintain their revolutionary resistance, commanding our solidarity.

Invest In Caring, Not Killing: Valuing the Work of Caring for People and the Planet
Saturday 7 February, 9.30am-5.30pm
Bolivar Hall, Venezuelan Embassy, 54 Grafton Way, London W1 5AJ

While money is always found to wage war and bail out banks, the caring needs of people and the planet are never the priority. Women who do 2/3 of the world's work are the poorest everywhere. Mothers who produce all the workers of the world are not considered contributors to the economy and must fight for every penny to feed families in war and so-called peace. Others are separated from their children and must fight to win them back. Domestic workers who "produce time for others" are marginalized and exploited. Rural workers who grow the food we eat are the most neglected. Men and women who refuse to kill for the military are criminalized.


Rediscovering Tanzania's Ujamaa - Tribute to the Great Ntimbanjayo Millinga and the Ruvuma Development Association
Sunday 8 February, 1.30-5.30pm
Bolivar Hall, Venezuelan Embassy, 54 Grafton Way, London W1 5A

In the 1960s, a great anti-imperialist movement for independence swept the world. President Julius Nyerere urged Tanzanians to reject capitalist exploitation, and build a society based on African communalism. Ntimbanjayo Millinga with a few others and hardly any funding put these views into practice and built an extraordinary rural society based on equity between women and men, young and old. By 1969, 17 ujamaa villages had formed the Ruvuma Development Association (RDA). But the governing party was so hostile that, against Nyerere's will, they closed it down. Tragically, Millinga died in 2008. RDA's legacy is a beacon in our struggle today.

Rape and Prostitution - A Question of Consent
Date & Time to be confirmed
House of Commons

While government feminists and religious fundamentalists equate prostitution with rape and claim most sex workers have been trafficked, rapists continue to get away with it - the conviction rate for reported rape in England and Wales is a shocking 6%. But a growing international movement for women's safety is demanding the decriminalization of sex work. In England it has defeated government attempts to "rehabilitate" sex workers and is opposing proposals to raid brothels and criminalize clients. In San Francisco 41% voted for decriminalization in the last elections.

37 Chapel Street, London NW1 5DP

Project Management
8 January 2009, 9.45am – 4.30pm
Learn how to plan and deliver a project, on budget and on time.

Health & Safety in the workplace
15 January 2009, 9.45am– 4.30pm
Learn about health and safety law, find out how to do a risk assessment, and get template health and safety policies to take away with you.

Public Speaking
23 January 2009, 9.45am– 4.30pm
How to speak with purpose and clarity, engage with your audience, and deal with nerves. Suitable for beginners, or those who want to brush up on their public speaking skills.

Managing premises
27 January 2009, 9.45am– 1pm
Learn how to get the best from your current office space, and find out how to find new office space (and get a good deal). The course also highlights sources of general support and advice.

To book please contact 020 7723 1216 or training@vawcvs.org

Course costs are £35 for members, £75 for nonmembers. Members with a yearly income of less than £10,000 may be eligible for a free place. If you have any specific access requirements, please contact VAW.

Wednesday 11th February 2009, 9.45am-4.45pm
School for Social Entrepreneurs, 18 Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PF

• Are you trying to start or grow an organisation that benefits your community?
• Would you like to hear from people who have been there and done it?
• Would you benefit from a day of leadership training to learn about social entrepreneurship and social enterprise?

If so, then this training could be for you. The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) supports individuals - social entrepreneurs - who strive to improve people's lives and affect change in their communities. We are running this event for people to sample SSE's approach and to provide leadership skills training for social and community entrepreneurs.

SSE works with a diverse range of individuals and organsiations. We particularly welcome people to this event from black and minority ethnic groups.

If you would like to attend this event please e-mail: dorota.luksza@sse.org.uk, or telephone: 020 8981 0300

CANDI (Camden and Islington College) has places available for ESOL evening classes at their centre at the Angel starting from February 2009:

• ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes at different levels
• Improve your listening, speaking, reading and writing skills
• Work towards national qualifications
• Prepare for further study and employment
• Receive careers guidance and tutorial support
• Courses are free if you are on income-assessed benefit e.g housing benefit, income support

To register come in and make an appointment from 5pm Monday to Thursday.

Address: The Angel, 283-309 Goswell Road, EC1V 7LA
Contact: 020 7700 9200; email: courseinfo@candi.ac.uk

Community Spaces is a £50m grants programme that provides funding to community groups across England to improve or create green open spaces. The programme is funded through the Big Lottery Fund's Changing Spaces initiative and is managed by Groundwork UK.

Although the majority of Community Spaces funding will go towards small and medium sized grants (under £50,000), the programme is also offering a limited number of large and flagship grants of up to £450,000. Grants of between £50,000 - £450,000 are only open for one round of application; deadlines have been set for January 2009 and are now fast approaching.

There will only be four large grants (£50,000 - £100,00) and one flagship grant (£100,001 - £450,000) awarded in each English region. This means the application process will be highly competitive.

If you are aware of a community group in your area that would benefit from a large or flagship sized grant and are able to get freehold or leasehold ownership of the land on which they want to carry out a project - then please encourage them to apply. To ensure applicants have sufficient time to put together an application before the deadline it is important that community groups begin to develop their applications as soon as possible.

More detailed information about applying can be found on the Community Spaces website. Alternatively you can contact the advice Line on 0845 3 671 671 for more information.

The Fund distributed over £4 million last year with grants ranging from £500 to £150,000.
Deadline: Meetings of the Trustees are usually held in June and early December each year.
Applications should be submitted no later than 1 May or 1 October for consideration at the next meeting.

The Baily Thomas Charitable Fund’s area of interest is learning disability. By the term ‘learning disability’, the Fund means the conditions generally referred to as severe learning difficulties, together with autism. In this area, they consider projects concerning children or adults. They do not give grants for research into, or care of, those with mental illness or dyslexia.

For more infromation please click here.

A collaboration between The Lightbox (the museum and gallery for Woking) and Winston Churchill School, Woking, as part of Their Past Your Future, a nation-wide series of projects overseen by MLA.

The central aim of Frames of Refuge is to help young people understand and reflect the experiences of refugees. For this, students from Winston Churchill School have been trained in interview technique to carry out a series of video interviews with both older and younger refugee witnesses of conflict. Where necessary interviews are being conducted in such a way as to conceal the interviewee’s identity. There will also be contextualizing workshops, and the students will produce art work in response to the interviews. The young people will then take part in both the editing process of the material to produce a film (which will also include other footage of some of the interviewees, still photographs and music) and also in the decision making process for a high quality exhibition.

The exhibition will incorporate the film, students’ artworks, other images and text. It will be shown at The Lightbox for a month in the summer of 2009 (where it will be seen by thousands), at the Surrey History Centre and then in 2010 at the venue of the new Community Play (which will focus upon The Ockenden Venture/ Ockenden International, an organization which assisted refugees and displaced people). In addition the film will also be distributed to schools and made available on the web.

What they need now is refugees who would be willing and able to be interviewed in Woking for the project. They would of course pay travel expenses and look after them. They are looking for people from a variety of countries if possible, and of various ages.

For further information please contact Rib Davis rib.davis@thelightbox.org

Asylum Aid has produced an in-depth analysis of the impact of internal relocation on women asylum seekers. Internal relocation is the system by which asylum seekers, even those judged to have been persecuted in their country of origin, may be told that they would be safe to relocate to a different part of that same country and therefore would not qualify for asylum in the UK. The report claims, based on a series of qualitative interviews and wider research, that women are disproportionately affected by internal relocation, as their asylum claims are more likely to be based on non-state persecution than are men's. This report discusses the legal application of internal relocation and questions the appropriateness of this principle for women asylum seekers who have experienced gender based persecution.

To download the report please click here.

We propose to open Gateway Education next September, providing we can raise sufficient funds. Gateway will be a small, human-scale, secondary school for Gifted Asperger's children who are too sensitive to cope with their current educational life, and would thrive in a progressive day school in London.
We have found the perfect site with 8 hectares of land, and propose to work with existing wildlife groups to develop a unique education centre which takes full advantage of outdoor education facilities - as well as offering the usual mutlimedia rich facilities needed by Aspies.
The school is promoted by parents and will include an experienced team including head teacher, therapists and a curriculum enrichment advisor - and will open for children from age 8 -12 in the first year. We envisage an innovative learning community where all key stake holders (children, parents & staff) take an active part in the creation of a child's individualised education plan. Parents support and involvement will be critical to our success.
We will offer a core academic curriculum, as these children require depth rather than breadth, as well as multi-media and ICT. We will emphasise creativity using music and art to foster self expression and drama to develop social skills, as well as debating about current affairs to expand ciritical thinking, debating skills and social responsibility. We will emphasize environmental issues and explore alternative technologies to teach science, and foster outdoor education. The young people can care for animals on the land, and strengthen independent living skills through their active particpation in life at Gateway.

We will be looking to create strong links with the community, and we would like to provide after school clubs, and to offer mentoring and counselling to adolescents and young people with Asperger's.

If you have fund-raising or administrative skills that you could offer at this planning stage, please contact Cassandra Lorius on 0208 444 0594 or email lorius.cassandra@gmail.com

• Outreach to refugee/migrant community organisations
• Administration and communication
• Policy support and development