A group of squatters have taken over Home Farm in Stanmer and in a week successfully turned it into a community centre.
Our aim is to reclaim disaffected public buildings and council properties to create community based projects (art exhibitions, plays, workshops, classes, lectures etc.) for the benefit of Brighton residents, as well as involving the squatting community in positive activities.
Since opening Home Farm we have had an ongoing art exhibition, flute and carpentry workshops and tomorrow we will be hosting a birthday party for a local resident. All the neighbours have been invited and expressed much enthusiasm. Some have even joined our team.
We are under no illusion as to how long we will be able to remain at Home Farm since Judge Gamba has unequivocally told us at a repossession hearing last week that “you have no rights”. However, whatever the authorities wish to believe, society is as much ours as it is theirs so whenever they close Home Farm we will just move to another location and start all over again. Our team is growing, our movement is gathering momentum and our ideas (that community resources should be used to improve living standards for all and not sold off or wasted) are spreading. We are raising awareness as well as dissipating the myth that squatters are a bunch of drug taking bums. This is because these ideas are as dangerous to those who harbour them as they are to those who are stigmatised by them.
Since opening Home Farm we have had an ongoing art exhibition, flute and carpentry workshops and tomorrow we will be hosting a birthday party for a local resident. All the neighbours have been invited and expressed much enthusiasm. Some have even joined our team.
We are under no illusion as to how long we will be able to remain at Home Farm since Judge Gamba has unequivocally told us at a repossession hearing last week that “you have no rights”. However, whatever the authorities wish to believe, society is as much ours as it is theirs so whenever they close Home Farm we will just move to another location and start all over again. Our team is growing, our movement is gathering momentum and our ideas (that community resources should be used to improve living standards for all and not sold off or wasted) are spreading. We are raising awareness as well as dissipating the myth that squatters are a bunch of drug taking bums. This is because these ideas are as dangerous to those who harbour them as they are to those who are stigmatised by them.
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