[…]
In response to the way that parents can be excluded from activism because of the lack of childcare, a meeting is taking place on Monday in London, as a first step in forming a radical childcare collective.
Here are the details:
Monday, May 11th 11:30 – 13:00
(if sunny) London Fields, across from the playground between the Lido and
Pub on the Park
(if rainy) LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, E1 1ES (Whitechapel)
Children are a vital part of our movement, but are often not included in
our organising. Parents are left out because of lack of child care,
meetings being held in inaccessible locations at inaccessible times and
because they are devalued by members of our ‘activist’ communities.
Children can be vibrant, creative, inspiring and clever. They often have
less hang ups and self-policing than adults, and have played a crucial
role in social movements around the world from anti-apartheid to squatting
and traveller movements. We need them.
The exclusion of such an important section of our community has obvious
implications on the quality and type of organising we do. Some steps have
been made to combat this exclusion, such as the work of the CRAP!
Collective (Child Rearing
Against Patriarchy) and the London Anarchafeminist Kolektiv, but
there is still a very long way to go.
We are interested in forming a radical child care collective as one step
in this process. We have some models around the world to build on,
including the Zapatistas and collectives in the U.S., but we want to work
on what will be best in London. We are interested in not only providing
child care for meetings and events but in the process actively including
children in our social movements.
This is an initial meeting to talk about ideas and to begin to formulate
our vision. Anyone who is interested is welcome at the meeting – parents,
children, non-parents, etc. There will be child care for the meeting if
you want it.
If you are interested but unable to make the meeting drop an email to: