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G20 Convergence - Kidspace

butterflea | 05.04.2009 21:14 | G20 London Summit | Free Spaces | Gender | Social Struggles | South Coast

Here are some photos of the kidspace and childcare cooperative that was organised to facilitate the protest and activism of parents and carers around the G20 summit in London on the 1st and 2nd of April 2009.

kidspace
kidspace


The kidspace and childcare cooperative was organised by the CRAP! Collective (child rearers against patriarchy), the London Pro-feminist Men's Group, the Global Mutiny Network and the community of Raven's Ait island.

Raven's Ait is a squatted island on the River Thames near Surbiton, South London. This artificially made island, which is actually still common land, is steeped in political history, although more recently has been used for weddings and corporate events. The present occupants are creating an amazing peaceful space for community, an eco-conference centre, permaculture and workshops on sustainability and environmental issues.

Raven's Ait island was the perfect place for the kidspace. We had a large indoor playroom with views of the river and passing boats, and a stunning grass lawn for the kids to run around on and climb trees. We had lots of fun playing games and doing forest-school inspired crafts, such as; making dreamcatchers / spider webs, nature crowns, tipis, parachute games, football, twister, a mini rock concert, lots of drawing and painting, Spanish singing, picnics and even played croquet on the lawn, dahling! Being at Raven's Ait also gave the children a chance to experience communal living and working, in a safe space, away from the noise of the city and the police brutality during the G20 protests.

Many actions and demos can easily be made more welcoming for children and their carers to participate in, and we would encourage this. However in respect to this weeks G20 protests, we made the decision that it would be too unpredictable and heavy for our children to attend and looking back on it we feel we made the right decision organising the kidspace away from the action.

Mainstream society is not very welcoming to parents, carers and children, and personally I feel that often activism isnt either. Capitalism places no value, monetary or otherwise, on the work parents do, and patriarchy designates it as women's work. As activists we need to challenge these notions. We need to ensure that as much value is placed on the role of childcare, as is placed on all other aspects of organising actions, demos, meetings, workshops, etc. We also need to be actively challenging the sexist notion that women should be looking after the children, by ensuring that more men are given childcare roles. Paid childcare is very expensive, and most of it ant afford to pay for it to go to meetings or do actions, so if childcare isnt provided or children arent welcome at meetings, then we just cant go. Even if childcare cant be arranged, then we should at least think about enabling children attend with their parents and carers.

This is an appeal for all those organising in the UK at the moment to ensure that your organising facilitates parents, carers and children attending and getting involved.

Don't leave your friends behind!

To get involved visit: www.ravensait.org.uk, www.feministchildrearing.blogspot.com, www.londonprofeministmensgroup.blogspot.com, www.global-mutiny.webs.com

butterflea
- e-mail: butterflea@riseup.net
- Homepage: http://www.feministchildrearing.blogspot.com

Additions

the photos

05.04.2009 21:35

ravens ait island
ravens ait island

playroom
playroom

games
games

singing
singing

climbing
climbing

more climbing
more climbing

painting
painting

face painting
face painting

chilling
chilling

kidspace
kidspace

sorry didnt attach the photos. here they are.

butterflea


Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

Children of the Revolution..? :-)

05.04.2009 22:01

Yes, you're rght, although it's very easy for people to forget when they're swept along on a tide of idealism that some folk have children and can't easily (or perhaps shouldn't) renege on this commitment.

The island sounds like the perfect place for kids, and it's a real shame that in urban environments the majority of children don't have access to this kind of space.

Perhaps we should encourage schools and playgroups to organise more trips to their local parks as part of their timetable of activities, as this would be a good compromise in the absence of any natural green spaces in our cities.

Cameraboy.


Awesome!

06.04.2009 08:21

Being a dad myself I couldn't make it into town this week (amongst other reasons), but had I known about this earlier things could have been different (first I heard of it was on dissident Island radio after the event)

Absolutely great work, will there be anything like this organised for May 4th in Brighton?

a pro-feminist dad


Nice one

06.04.2009 12:30

Well done to all the people whose hard work made this possible. Facilitating participation in political activity by people with kids is looked over much too often by the left, so great to see this.

Supportive


Profeminist dad - brighton may 4

06.04.2009 14:57

Not sure whether anything is planned in relation to smash edo event. It would be a really good idea, perhpas contact smash edo to see what if anyhting is planned for children. Theres nothing stopping us from organising something ourselves. I'm sure that there are lots of people in Brighton and others who would be coming from elsewhere for that day, who have children and would be up for sorting something out for kids. Please email feministchildrearing, and we could see can we organise something. Would be cool to try to do some sort of action/ event for children, parents etc that could run alongside main event.

butterflea
mail e-mail: feministchildrearing(at)riseup.net


Fantastic - thanks for doing this

06.04.2009 23:34

As a single mother who was unable to attend last week because of childcare, it is fantastic to see this happening - especially having a separate very safe space.

It is probably my fault for not finding out about this, but I wish I'd known about it beforehand.

Lots of love and solidarity.

Supportive Mother


didnt really publicise kidspace very well

07.04.2009 09:24

but had to make the decision not to post it on indymedia in case it brought unwanted attention to wherever we ended up. Also to ensure the safety of the children, carers and parents.
This hightlights the importance of having networks of parents, carers, children, allies etc so that we can organise childcare ourselves and get information out about it without having to post it online. The CRAP! Collective is trying to organise such networks and really push childcare issues in activist circles, to join email feministchildrearing(at)riseup.net. It would be great to have groups of people all over the place ready and willing to take on organising safe spaces and actions for children, and that could show other people what to do, whats needed etc, so that it didnt always fall to parents and carers to organise.

butterflea


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