Last week SPACE4 gathered its community to engage with Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) Big One Weekend. It all started when I attended a ‘Stronger as One Evening’ organised by XR Camden which aimed to connect “all groups, communities and charities in Camden who share similar sentiments on the state of the climate and ecology, to unite together.” With over 30 attendees gathered at the Greenwood Centre in Kentish Town, XR Camden facilitated a workshop which enabled us all to think about how we wanted to work together. At the end of the evening I volunteered SPACE4 as a venue to host another social evening before the Big One weekend. Community Plan for Holloway and the Calthorpe Community Garden opted to help with organising.
Thursday 20th April
We settled on Thursday 20th April, the night before the first day of protests, to host an informal BYO drinks and snacks social. We set up the space for arts and crafts and requested people to bring and share banner making materials so that we could all create banners for the weekend.
Friday 21st April
The next morning, on Friday we joined forces with XR Camden’s walking group bright and early to walk 10km from Parliament Hill to Parliament Square. It was a brilliantly organised walk with plenty of stewards to guide what felt like 100 of us from North London right through Central London.
When we arrived at Parliament Square we were overjoyed to find so many people and so much action. The atmosphere was brilliant – music, talks, costumes, designated ‘good vibes’ educators, hare krishna free food and more… We even bumped into multiple SPACE4 people which is crazy considering how many people were there!! We all felt energised to be part of this social movement and excited to have SPACE4 as an active and purposeful community.
