A Year in KIN
As the year draws to a close, we would like to reflect on 2024 and what’s upcoming at KIN in 2025.
2024
Internal
Our team is growing!
In Spring 2024 we welcomed Gin as our support worker and assistant.
Natasha joined us in July as Events Producer and Comms Lead. Natasha shared some reflections on what it’s like joining an organisation working towards Black Liberation; “Being part of the KIN team means so much to me. I am grateful to work in an environment which centres joyful, caring and supportive systems for each other and those we work with”.
This winter we welcomed Grace who is our Ops Partner for the next few months. Grace’s work will support us to develop our infrastructural needs across all areas of KIN. Grace shared some thoughts about joining the team, “I’m so thrilled to be supporting the team over the next few months with all things ops! I support organisations to ensure their visions are not just inspired but also organised, operational, and impactful. I’m really excited to learn from the KIN team and this wonderful network too.”
To be the resource we want to be for our Network, we as a team must feel cared for, supported, well-resourced and work sustainably. As a team, we are working to unlearn ways of doing and being that centre productivity over humanity. We are experimenting and feeling our way towards more liberatory, loving and generative organisational practices. We seek to document and model this by:
Developing anti-oppressive governance, policies & practices: For liberation and sustainability
Recruiting: Building out our own internal capacity to do this work; deepening our well-being and support offering, recruiting in accessible ways; creating a diverse staff team bringing their own experiences and knowledge.
Fundraising: Fundraising to make long term movement strengthening work sustainable, moving away from boom and bust.
Convening
In February 2024, KIN brought a UK wide cohort of Black activists from across various movement spaces, together over a three day retreat. It was transformative, nourishing and offered an opportunity for leaders to (re)connect, learn, share, decompress, create and rest together. The theme was Dreaming as Praxis. We explored what decolonial practice looks like in both our day to day lives.
“The retreat made me feel and think about the Importance of organising with global majority people and having these crucial holding spaces…I think there’s a shared comfort in not having to explain yourself or your experiences and not having to deal with unintentional biases in the room. Radical, liberatory principles were shared. In other mixed spaces it’s been difficult when white activists do not acknowledge their privilege and the distinctions between state violence against white bodies versus Black bodies, particularly when discussing direct action.”
Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence
Ayuuto Means Help: Savings Circles In The African Diaspora, October 2024. Image credit: Theodorah Ndlovu
In September, with Decolonising Economics, we launched our collaborative project Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence. For the first event Oral Histories: Black British Economic History, were joined by Dee Woods, an award winning food system leader, and Last Mafuba, founder of Inini Initiative, who support African migrant and refugee communities.
We gathered again in October to discuss saving circles in partnership with Coffee Afrik’s Women’s Coop. This was an intergenerational conversation where we learned about saving circles across communities and how they can be used as a tool for self determination
These events showed us that we can begin to build an economy of care and solidarity through everyday practices.
2025
Here is a glimpse into what we will be up to in 2025…
Commissions
We’ll be sharing some exciting new commissioned texts, podcasts and artworks from our Network and wider community.
Grief, Joy and Solidarity spaces
These events are curated in slow and long term response to the far right riots during Summer 2024 and the specific needs, spaces and resources that our network told us they wanted to co-create.
Town Hall
Our online Town hall brings together Black activists, organisers and people who are doing radical work on the frontlines (in their communities). We will share dates in the New Year.
Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence
The Decolonising Economics and Kinfolk Network collaboration continues with our Medicine event series and a year long community of practice, dates to follow.
Convening
Our annual multi-day residential is a chance for the Black activist community across the UK and beyond to go deeper, to plan and to rest for Black liberation. Here we remember and imagine ways of building beyond what currently is. Through workshops, facilitated sessions, body movement and wellbeing practices this is a space where insatiable hope meets meaningful action.
Our team is taking a break until mid January. We can’t wait to reconnect!
Dee, Gee, Grace, & Tasha x
