Creative / Crafter / Caketivist
Queer, vegan / freegan, anti-capitalist, anarcha-feminist, life-affirming, enthusiastic activist. Open-minded, free being, wandering / wondering spirit. Mmm, brains...
Check out Daily Feminist Action: For what I did to overthrow sexism today. Plus, Feminists of Hackney; get involved!
Check out Inspire With Hope: Articles and detailed updates about what I do in my life.
Email inspirewithhope@gmail.com: I'd love to hear from you!
A bit about me
- I'm a full-time activist. I volunteer at Pogo Cafe; it's excellent, come and visit!
- I'm do web stuff; I'm interested in finding more stuff that's inline with my values.
- I'm interested in meeting needs (like shelter, food, community) outside of "the system", for example, without money. Housing's what I'm finding most challenging. Long-term, I'm working on starting an ethical activists housing co-operative (or joining an existing one).
- I'm passionate about challenging oppression and exploitation, with a particular awareness of patriarchy and capitalism as oppressive structures. I like inspiring people and making positive changes to the world. I like being creative and using satire to highlight absurdity. I like free spaces, safer spaces, warmth.
- I absolutely love this article: How to Drop Out, by Ran Prieur.
Politicised? Active? Challenging the status quo? Let's hang out!
Want to be more active? Some tips!
Coming up...
Other stuff I'm co-organising:
- Crafty feminists - workshops, arts and crafts, zines. Get in touch if you'd like to help out in any way. :)
- Forum theatre type events for Quakers, anarchists and feminists. Not sure what yet, but somehow!
- Collective communication for our activist communities - more events
I really love working with my activist friends; it's awesome!
July 2010
Non-violence and Food
On Tuesday 13 July, I co-facilitated a discussion on Non-violence and Food: "Is what we eat, and how it's produced, an aspect of our lifestyle which ought to be informed by a commitment to nonviolence? What might a nonviolent diet look like? Or is worrying about a "nonviolent lifestyle" a luxury, when there are so many more obvious forms of physical and structural violence around us?"
It was great!
June 2010
Collective Communication: Weekend of Workshops
I'm co-organising a facilitation and consensus event, with Seeds of Change, for our autonomous communities, on Saturday 3rd - Sunday 4th July, in Hackney, East London. It's free but you need to book, limited places.
Feminists of Hackney
I co-started a local feminism group for self-identified women. One of the aims is to bring different kinds of feminists together. Yes, I'm a unity feminist. I call it inreach. Picnic, 17th July, everyone welcome - bring shoes you don't want or need any more if you'd like to participate in the art...
Theatre of the Oppressed workshop at St. Ethelburga's
It was excellent! I've been to playback theatre as well, which I really enjoyed. I'm looking forward to exploring performance more, especially the idea of spectactors (i.e. the audience participates in the acting too).
Zine Symposium & Zine Fest
I went to my first ever zine fairs. They were brilliant! I'm particularly interested in feminist zines so I got loads of those. I'll be writing about them at Daily Feminist Action. I'm inspired to start my own zine on something feminism-related. I might start off with contributing to Ladyfest Ten's crafty zine.
May 2010
Learning electrics & plumbing with Women and Manual Trades
It was awesome. I want to learn more plumbing; I'd be interested to hear about available courses. »More
My focuses lately
- Radicalising the mainstream with a mixture of conversation and articles
- Looking for ethical web agencies & organisations that want freelancers
- Exploring different housing set-ups that might fit me better
April 2010
Anarchafeminist gathering, Manchester
Utterly amazing! Write-up on its way
Demo against the Digital Economy Bill
I'm not sure where to start with what's wrong with this bill! Roughly 20 supporters of the Open Rights Group demonstrated outside UK Music, looking official and disapproving before delivering a disconnection notice for Feargal Sharkey.
March 2010
- I've become more adventurous and intrepid as an explorer, when travelling, which is cool.
- I decided to become a single-issue campaigner: Membership with lots of groups, therefore giving me a greater variety of possible actions to support.
- I started working on a collection of work to make activism more accessible / mainstream
Film screening of BBC4 Women documentary
London Feminist Network members watched the first and last of this three-part series. It was cool to be sitting near some of those on film!
Launch of new UK feminism group
Lots of ideas and new energy, pretty exciting. I'm hoping this new initiative will help bring together a lot of the stuff that's going on already, as well as helping to centralise things a bit.
Demo against lads' mags being sold in supermarkets
Over 30 activists shook up Tescos. In addition to the usual Feminist Friday antics (covering lads's mags in anti-sexist slogans), conga-ing round the shop singing, "Let's get rid of lads' mags. Let's get rid of lads' mags." :) Watch it on YouTube
Conflict resolution and peace
Some brilliant conflict resolution (difficult, challenging, inspiring) kickstarted my thinking about this and then I was intending to go to a discussion on Non-Violence and Gender the next week anyway, so I did that and it's really interesting how all this stuff is synthesising in my brain!
Free School Weekender
I worked on this with a bunch of people for some time! Confronting hierarchy and inequality in education. Reclaiming knowledge to develop self-reliance. Challenging gender oppression. Bikes, welding, software, French, puppets, make your own underwear, sexual consent and *loads* more... I was interviewed for IndyMedia and I did some pretty far our welcoming at the front desk! Write-up on its way...
Women's Liberation Conference, Oxford
It was great! I facilitated a crafting space, with jewellery workshops and knitting. Lots of brilliant conversations, ideas and networking. Write-up on its way...
Cooking (what's it called if you "cook" it, but it's raw?!)
I've been experimenting with creating my own recipes. So far this has resulted in:
- Complicated carrot and potato pink soup (includes beetroot, courgette (raw), broccoli (some of it raw))
- Garlic, mushroom and leek, wholegrain risotto
- Chilli garlic houmous (includes sunflower seed and pumpkin seed oil)
February 2010
Loving kindness, Quakers and Buddhism
One of the things I've been focusing on is meditation and similar practices, like Quaker Meetings and listening groups, with the aim of nurturing a general friendliness towards life. Hanging out with Buddhists and Quakers helps with this; I went to Young Friends' General Meeting (a Quaker thing for 18-30ish year olds) and met some awesome people.
Jewellery craft workshops
Photos from previous jewellery workshops I've run
I ran some jewellery workshops at Sweet Tooth in Brixton Village.
13 creative & enthusiastic participants, of different ages and genders, made earrings, bracelets and necklaces; I was really impressed by the creativity. It was a really fun experience for all of us.
More photos and a write-up to follow...
Cooking
I've been experimenting with creating my own recipes. So far this has resulted in:
- Pink onion soup (includes beetroot and carrot)
- Crunchy peanut butter soup (includes broccoli, sprouts, kale)
- New potato, gorgeous greens and oyster mushroom hot soup (includes kale, sprouts, courgette)
- Chilli greens soup (includes new potatoes, kale, broccoli, oyster mushrooms)
January 2010
Sorting out my life: You know, the usual...
- The Women's Library - reading & attending the exhibition
- Meditating & philosophising
- Sock Mobbing - handing out stuff & chatting with street homeless people
- Craft Crazy, Brixton Village - running free jewellery crafting workshops and my handmade jewellery for sale.
- Free School Weekender - helping organise it for March
- Free Shop, Non Commercial House - "staffing" it and running jewellery workshops
- Brilliant anarcha-feminism conference, Brighton
Further achievements & recognition
- Kathleen, featured on the University of Sussex site, as solopreneur of Inspire With Hope
- Kathleen, featured in Women in Media, as solopreneur of Inspire With Hope
- Kathleen, featured in Graduate Fashion Week, as co-designer of Subcultures
- Stuff people say about me: References & compliments
