Announcing our new partnership with Hackney Wick Town Hall
We’re constantly exploring new ways that we can reflect community needs through our work. One key issue we’ve been evaluating a lot internally is how can fixed assets - like buildings - be a reflection of an area’s needs, the needs that are ever evolving & those that are constant?
Cast your mind back to spring 2020. What did your neighbourhood need from its buildings then, as opposed to now? Or cast your mind forward to an uncertain future, where climate change has radically changed our local environment. What will you need from your neighbourhood then?
These questions have become more acute over the past 12 months as we’ve begun to deliver spaces like The Loop and Textile Reuse Hub.
Securing ownership of buildings like these can take many, many years, passing through endless hands and stages. The fate of the project is sealed long before completion, with little room for iteration after the fact. But, to reiterate, in daily life, our neighbourhood is full of people who are dealing with ever changing local issues, while we’re operating through (mostly) fixed and static infrastructure.
We can’t completely course-correct on a sixpence to meet those critical needs every couple of years, or can we?
These fundamental asymmetries are part of what constricts what we see as a future neighbourhood that is thriving, has a robust social fabric, one where community members become owners not just beneficiaries of change. However, we’re not blind to the realities, and we’re not in the business of trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Instead, we seek new ways to achieve our mission, using multiple approaches concurrently, to try to achieve a sum greater than its parts.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce our partnership with the Hackney Wick Town Hall (HWTH). A partnership that is necessary at this specific time for the impact it can create, but also to secure the long term future of two vital local community organisations during a testing funding landscape for third sector organisations.
This partnership gives both organisations new tools, greater reach and the opportunity to empower local people to feel agency over their neighbourhood and empowerment in local political and civic participation.
So what is Hackney Wick Town Hall?
For those of you who don’t know, HWTH was established in 2017 by Gill Wildman of PLOT and is now run by Luke Billigham of Hackney Quest, Polly Mann of Wick Award and sessions are moderated by David Adesanya.
The aim of HWTH is to:
enable connection and dialogue between local residents
empower local residents to take action in to improve their neighbourhood
connect local residents with decisions makers or those with routes decision makers
Some recent notable achievements that have been rooted in the HWTH’s work include creating a space for dialogue around Trowbridge Surgery/Green, A12 safety campaign and supporting local youth initiative on Red Path project.
This great work has consistently made us take note of the value HWTH provides, creating space for grassroots dialogue, mobilising a local network and harnessing the desire for local people to apply their energy to achieve material change in their neighbourhood.
What do we want to achieve collectively through this new partnership?
Make fixed local assets more reflexive - shape HWFI CDT’s current and future assets in a more dynamic way and develop a system for the wider local ecosystem to tailor their efforts accordingly
Secure future funds - this will mean more events, more local problems resolved quickly and a more harmonious neighbourhood where local people feel heard
HWTH team will advise us on our community support functions - helping us to shape our activities around local needs
We’ve already secured Neighbourhood Priorities Funds from the London Legacy Development Corporation to hire a freelance Community Impact Manager to lead on this partnership. We’ve worked with the Good Growth Hub/A New Direction team over the past few months to find a local to take on this work, and we can't can’t wait to introduce them to you in the coming weeks.
A great analogy comes to mind as I write to you, in my notes, as "water metaphor." A parched human is stranded in the desert, finds an obscure water source and in a desperate rush, aggressively tries to grasp the water, and as a result, the water keeps slipping through their hands and they are left unfulfilled.
In moments like that you need a patient and steady hand, to cup your hands gently, to grasp the full reward required. As with water, so go opportunistic moments in life. For us here at the HWFI CDT, this partnership is an opportunity in our journey that we feel holds huge potential, so we intend to patiently, gently, nurture it.
We hope you will be the other hand clasping the benefits on offer with us.