Living Together: Housing Struggles, Making Home and Hope
A conversation between:
Shabna Begum
Kwajo Tweneboa
Josh Virasami
London Renters Union
Maymuna Osman
03/11/2023
19:00 – 21:00
ICF @ Block 336
336 Brixton Road
London SW9 7AA
Description
This panel discussion between Joshua Virasami, Kwajo Tweneboa, Dr Shabna Begum, Maymuna Osman and a London Renters Union member will explore the need for safe and dignified housing. In this session, panellists will discuss housing as a vital part of our liberation struggles and demands for health justice. They will also explore how community housing struggles and resistance can interrupt state violence, and ask how we can practically build towards safe housing and homes for all, particularly the most vulnerable, such as the migrant communities, working class folks and racialised people.
This event will be BSL interpreted.
Biographies
Joshua Virasami is an anti-racist activist and organiser. He is the author of How to Change it: Make a Difference, a handbook for young activists, published with Stormzy and Penguin’s #Merky Books. He has also written for the Guardian, the Independent and Novara Media, and contributed a chapter on anti-racism to Futures of Socialism. He has been involved in many grassroots initiatives, including London Black Revolutionaries, Black Dissidents, Black Lives Matter UK and Climate Justice collective Wretched of the Earth, and is currently coordinating organising and training at London Renters Union.
Kwajo Tweneboa is a 24-year-old campaigner from south London, who uses social media to give a voice to variety of social issues. After publicly shaming his housing association into carrying out repairs on his family’s flat after a year of inaction, Kwajo has travelled the country putting pressure on politicians and social housing providers to improve living standards. He passionately campaigns for change, having met with government officials from all sides of the spectrum including Sadiq Khan and Michael Gove. Kwajo presented Untold: Help! My Home is Disgusting on Channel 4, taking on social housing tenants’ and private renters’ calls for help.
Dr Shabna Begum is currently interim Co-CEO of the Runnymede Trust and author of From Sylhet to Spitalfields: Bengali Squatters in 1970s East London. She was a teacher for over 20 years and has always centred racial justice in her work.
Maymuna Osman is an organiser currently focused on building power for housing justice at Migrants Organise.
