rich 1.0 Action Network https://actionnetwork.org <link href='https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed-v3.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' /><script src='https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v6/form/waiting-list-survival-diying-it?format=js&source=widget'></script><div id='can-form-area-waiting-list-survival-diying-it' style='width: 100%'><!-- this div is the target for our HTML insertion --></div> POMOC https://actionnetwork.org/groups/pomocorguk https://can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/forms/photos/000/828/311/normal/ACTION_NETWORK.png Survival - DIYing it is now SOLD OUT. Please register here to join the WAITING LIST. Saturday, 25th July, 5-8:30pm | Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, Middleton Street, E2 9RR Not long ago in Romania, Mădălina’s uncle tuned a TV signal with a potato and a nail. Necessity has always been the best DIY teacher. Join us for a hands-on afternoon celebrating and sharing lo-fi survival strategies passed down to us from elders and eccentric relatives: foraging basics, water filtration, packing disaster-preparedness go-bags, basic self defence and keeping calm during crises, and more. The far right is organising global physical training camps. Wars and climate breakdown are reshaping everyday safety in too many places. We may be building strong coalitions, and providing top notch critical analysis, but what about practical survival skills? Unleashing our creativity and problem solving skills with our communities is the very core of resistance. Give it a try, and bring your own DIY electrical devices. Prizes for the most functional and/or brilliantly questionable. Expect an array of preserved food, and Eastern European soft drinks. Please bring your own mug, crockery, and cutlery to minimise waste. PROGRAMME 5:15-6:15 PM / 6:30-7:30 PM   Water filtration workshop The session will explore how to build a DIY water filtration system using natural materials such as charcoal, gravel, sand, and plant materials. The session aims to re-kindle the ancestral and traditional knowledge of different skills and knowledge that are otherwise forgotten. Shunn Lei is a multidisciplinary cultural worker, feminist researcher and organiser. With over 10 years of extensive ethnographic research experience in Burma/Myanmar and Southeast Asia, her areas of interest include rebel memories, feminism, diasporic identities, labour, social reproduction, state dissidents, and revolutions. Drawing inspiration from marginalised lived experiences and decolonial feminist thought, her approaches include participatory media and decolonial feminist methodology. 5:15-6:15 PM / 6:30-7:30 PM  Basic self-defence workshop There is deep wisdom in the body. This short workshop will include the basics of self-defence, group formation skills for hostile environments, and simple practices to calm, connect with and draw upon both personal and collective body wisdom when a crisis hits. Elina Akhmetova is a dance artist, movement director, choreographer, performer and producer. Her work spans across theatre, animation, immersive and museum performances, dance and film. She believes to live embodied is a radical act, and loves to bring somatics into her activist work.   5:15-6:15 PM  Foraging basics workshop / 6:30-7:00 PM Foraging drop-in Learn how to identify wild plants and some of their stories and folklore. We will cover a range of plants including edible, toxic and medicinal species, and those used for natural crafts. Izzy Johns is a foraging teacher, Community gardener in residence at the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve's medicine garden, and runs a foraging project called Rights For Weeds. Her work endeavours to nurture inter-species relationships within the ecosystem of East London. 6:15-7:30 PM  Lo-fi textile station and skill share drop-in Drop by throughout the evening to touch some wool sourced from city farms nearby, and learn how to card, spin and weave with simple tools. You can even try to make your own loom! Or just join in for a relaxed chat about making things with our hands, or bring a craft project you’re working on that you’d like to share with others. Ilinca Diaconescu is an urban planner and self-taught weaver who enjoys learning about textiles and making together with others. 6:30-7:30 PM  Emergency go bag workshop Learn how to create your own ‘go bag’ filled with essential survival supplies. Our time together will include inspiration and support for what to include in your go bag and how to create a plan for emergency situations. Zea Mays is a writer, community herbalist, cultural ecologist and educator with over a decade of experience holding space for people to strengthen their sense of agency in the face of catastrophe while cultivating communal resilience, connection to one another and the living earth. ++BONUS++ A DIY experimentation station where potatoes, nails, and electricity devices can come together. Supervised by the event's host, Andreea Tudose, an artist, actor, and theatre/film maker with an interest in community organising. Delicious food prepared by Cristian Sandulescu, an anthropologist and chef with a keen interest in experimentation. Event curated by: Andreea Tudose Decor, wayfinding, and costume design: Filip Gesse SURVIVAL: DIY-ing it forms part of Co-learning in Public, an event series that aims to build solidarity between Eastern Europe and other regions. This is an initiative developed by POMOC in collaboration with Eastern Europeans who drive social, cultural, and political change in the UK. POMOC is a national grassroots political home for Eastern European migrants to organise together towards dignity, power and justice. We build power among migrants with marginalised genders, including women and queer, trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people, and work in solidarity with other marginalised communities. Bethnal Green Nature Reserve is a cultural institute focused on ecological research and community learning in the heart of East London. Their new programme, the Experimental School of Urban Ecologies, offers a holistic and integrated approach to learning, combining practical ecological skills with environmental awareness, storytelling, and cultural knowledge. https://actionnetwork.org/forms/waiting-list-survival-diying-it