Common People #0020
Why 2025 is the year of DIY
Hello! Happy new year and all that.
The theme for 2025 is DIY.
It’d be easy to keep knocking on the door of the industry rattling a tin cup, asking for jobs for Commoners and funding for community projects. We’ve done it. For all the well wishes, you might as well talk to a sausage roll. The intent is there but the money isn’t.
It’d be even easier to sit back and wait for those big government changes we’ve been promised to trickle down. Eventually. In a few years. If the bad actors waiting in the wings haven’t undone it all by then.
This year it’s time to tap into the strength of our own communities. Bypass the industry gatekeepers. Crowdfund, start businesses, share knowledge, big up each other’s work. If the industry won’t let us Commoners in, we’ll build our own house. And guess what? IT’LL BE BLOODY BETTER!
More info to follow. While that marinates, here’s this month’s stuff.
We’re celebrating
Rotherham is 2025’s first ever Children’s Capital of Culture. The year-long programme will include creative training, exhibitions and events run for and by the local community. The idea didn’t come from any politician or councillor, but from the young people themselves. (DIY!)
This year’s Portrait of Britain winners are out. From boxing in Newcastle to sunbathing in Essex, our favourite images from the shortlist perfectly capture the unique romance of everyday life in Britain.
Akan Books, a new publishing imprint from June Sarpong OBE, are actively looking for submissions from Working Class writers in both fiction and non-fiction.
Ezra Collective sang the praises of Tomorrow’s Warriors in a BBC interview this month. The charity provides private music lessons to young people who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to afford them, with a special focus on those from the African diaspora and girls. Its impact on music, especially over the last decade, has been seismic, fuelling the now globally recognised UK Jazz wave and proving how Working Class people given the tools to succeed benefits us all.
Gentrification has changed some parts of East London beyond recognition, often with Working Class locals priced out of its culture. The Yard theatre in Hackney Wick wants to change that and recently crowdfunded £16,000 to provide theatre-making to 250 young people, free of charge (DIY!) Past alumni of The Yard are now performing on TV, on stage and studying at world class universities. This stuff makes a difference.
Radio 4 expertly probed the results of a major new study into inequality in Britain.
For all you brand people looking for activation inspiration, the Know Your Neighbourhood project, a fund aimed at bringing communities together to tackle loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas across England, is set to finish in March after a successful few years.
A grassroots effort by locals in the small Dutch city of Haarlem has seen a former prison transformed into an incredibly beautiful arts hub, complete with podcast studios, galleries and a cinema. Honestly, you need to see the pictures. It’s stunning.
STAT!
The UK’s wealth gap has increased by 50% in 8 years. IT’S NOT GOOD IS IT?!
How many different ways are there to say IT’S F*CKING FREEZING in Working Class communities around Britain? Quite a few, according to our WhatsApp group. Blitz (London). Nobblin’ (Wales). Foundered (Northern Ireland). Nithered (Yorkshire). Chappin. Taters. Parky. Baltic. Brass monkeys.
(BTW if you’re a Commoner and would like to join our WhatsApp group, reply to this message for the link. Beats doing any work.)
Useful links
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Until next month,
Much love.