Jericho Road

“I don’t believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.”

“The emotional challenge of holding risk and providing hope – both are very difficult. Creating a vision of the future. We are in the hope business because we fundamentally believe that people are good, social, cooperative beings who can be more than the sum of the parts and that creates surplus value for social good.”

“When a system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.”

John Logie Baird came to Hastings in 1922 to try to improve his health with fresh air. ‘It can be said that Hastings saved my life’, he wrote later. ‘In a very short time the exhilarating atmosphere of Hastings made me a changed man.’

History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme…

Believe that a farther shore

Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Helen Bevan, Chief Transformation Officer at the NHS

Interview with community organiser, Tom Chigbo (2019)

“If you can embody the change you struggle for, you have already won – not by fighting but by becoming” from ‘The Uses of Disaster’ Harper’s Magazine, October 2005

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new”

Emily Scurrah for New Economics Foundation, 2018

https://neweconomics.org/2018/09/whats-the-point-of-community-land-trusts?mc_cid=8a8016361d&mc_eid=ad10799818

“In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard  ground overlooking a swamp.  On the high ground, manageable problems lend themselves to solutions through the use of research­ based theory and technique.  In the swampy lowlands, problems are messy and confusing  and incapable of technical solution.  The irony of this situation is that the problems of the high ground tend to be relatively unimportant to individuals or society at large, however great their technical interest may be, while  in the swamp lie the problems of greatest human concern.  The practitioner is confronted with a choice. Shall he remain on the high ground where he can solve relatively unimportant problems according to his standards of rigour, or shall he descend to the swamp of important problems where he cannot be rigorous in any way he  knows how to describe”.

“His tales are told with infectious enthusiasm, and his life experiences in the area are unmatched, giving him leverage to shine a light on Camden’s ‘unseen’ past and present.”

“Make what matters count” – Happy City in Bristol offer a revolutionary place-based model of change that put the wellbeing of current and future generations centre stage. New measures of progress and training for projects and campaigns to help embed them into how places work. Check out their website and youtube channel – be inspired!

Where are the rebels now? “How radical can you be when you’re living with your mum until your 30. London will fucking kill you. It has become an economically walled city. I do feel for them. When I was growing up there were cracks you could operate in – squatting for instance. I think young people have to get over the London thing and think about new places of creative growth.”

Double trouble? How big cities are gentrifying their neighbours

Barcelona Forces Banks to Turn Repossessed Homes Into Affordable Housing

“It is the duty of leaders to create more leaders, not more followers”

“The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is one of the most precious, yet most neglected, of our human rights'”  David Harvey

What a great weekend, organised and entertained by Community Organisers

The Street that won the Turner Prize (Guardian)

“The Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvellous products of our labour.“
Lyndon Johnson

“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still”
Chinese proverb

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs – ask yourself what makes you come alive – and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive”. Howard Thurman, 1899-1981

The frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual.”
Ruben Alvez, Brazilian theologian