As part of the community collaboration programme, U.Lab: Future of Lambeth**, facilitator Rebecca (Bex) Trevalyan went to visit the Lambeth Co-op Centre. She came away inspired by the co-operative approach to business – and what that might mean for the borough.
I’d been involved with community business for a couple of years around Brixton and West Norwood, and had met Devon Thomas on many occasions.
When a group of us from the U.Lab programme went to visit the Lambeth Co-operative Centre in December 2015, Founder Devon was our host.
He proudly showed us around the Centre; an unassuming 70s building tucked behind a church near Oval. He was a natural storyteller.
‘The whole idea of a co-operative business began in Jamaica,’ he told us in his rich gravelly tones. ‘An influential man called Norman Washington Manley persuaded the right people in a large banana firm to put one pence into a basic welfare fund for workers, for every kilo of bananas they exported. This later became a co-operative.’
Devon and his parents were part of that heritage of co-operatives, an approach they imported to Brixton when they arrived here in the 1950s.
The ethos of U.Lab is about seeing the world from a new perspective. To do that properly, you’re supposed to switch off those voices in your head that make you cynical, scared, judgmental. We all have them of course. The Daily Mail Voices I like to call them.
Having worked in social enterprise and co-operatives for a few years, I might once have arrived at the Co-op Centre believing I knew all there was to know on the subject.
But true to U.Lab teaching, I kept my mind and heart open.
What might I learn? What questions might I ask that would reveal rich stories from another world? How might I connect with Devon, a person very different from me on the face of it, in a meaningful way?
What emerged was a colourful history of co-operatives and of Brixton itself – and a relationship of trust and respect between Devon and his visitors.
The Lambeth Co-op Centre opened in 1987, after the team designed the building, raised the money and employed local labour (half of them women) – themselves.
In the early years, Devon supported marginalised young people in particular to develop their own co-operative enterprises.
Council re-structure followed budget cuts followed re-structure, yet Devon and team continued to offer business advice to their community, dodging the now familiar narrative of rent hikes and tenant displacement.
What’s more, Devon has incorporated the theory behind U.Lab into the Ubele Initiative‘s African Diaspora leadership programme.
The Co-op Centre now happily houses a Caribbean news service, local visual storytellers Shoots and Leaves, and All Sewn Up, who we went to visit. In a spacious room on the ground floor, we saw 10 women hard at work – carefully stitching colourful curtains or hemming dresses. Women from more affluent Clapham up the road pay higher fees for upholstery courses, which subsidise courses for women from local estates.
I came away humbled. I’ve long had this pipe dream for Lambeth, about what we might achieve together by mixing the best bits of business, community and good facilitation. And here was someone who had been doing just that, a stone’s throw from Impact Hub Brixton, for the best part of 30 years.
What is working in Lambeth?
Energy and creativity among Lambeth community groups seems higher than ever – Friends of Library and Park groups, housing activism, food growing and food waste initiatives, a lively local media scene..
The co-operative model has worked in bringing legitimacy, funding and (in most cases) accountable governance structures to Lambeth-based projects:
- Brixton Energy has shown us that a co-operative approach works for community energy
- Remakery is now showing us that a co-operative approach can work for workspaces
- Brixton Green has shown us that, despite personal hurdles, there’s potential for a co-operative approach to work for housing
What if the co-operative model was the answer for the long-term governance of community assets across the borough? What if thousands of us could finance and own our local pubs, libraries, parks, schools, workspaces, community farms, housing estates, wellbeing hubs, sports facilities..?
This is working further afield too. The model means the spaces serve the many rather than the few – because they are owned and governed by the many, not the few.
What is needed for co-operatives to flourish?
Where communities really struggle is with access to space, to the assets themselves. I’ve experienced that struggle personally with my own project, Library of Things.
One thing that unites places like the Remakery and Devon’s Co-op Centre is that they both sit in spaces off the beaten track, rather than on our high streets. We see this pattern across Lambeth. Community groups and non-profits are entering meanwhile spaces and fringe sites.
If the Council really is serious about the idea of co-operation, then these organisations shouldn’t live forever on the outskirts.
If the Council can provide long-term, affordable access to lovable spaces and land – on our high streets – communities can lead the way in co-producing the outcomes that happen there. A central location makes an initiative central to our collective daily experience and imagination. The Open Works in West Norwood was a prime example – this Guardian article shares the outcomes.
Once we have access to space, methods like U.Lab help both communities and council to self-organise in an atmosphere of trust and respect, help siloed teams and homogenised communities to connect the dots as a collective, and help us all to co-design services that work for people.
But we need to think holistically, we need to think long-term. We can no longer think about developers paying us for a spot on the high street, which then funds a spot for a community centre hidden down side streets. We can no longer think about temporary sites that disappear when funding and motivation disappear.
Lambeth: A Co-operative Community
The UK co-operative business movement surged by 26% from 2009 to 2013. Is Lambeth, with its heritage of people like Devon Thomas, Brixton Energy and the Remakery, the perfect place to continue this trend?
Yes – if we as a borough can do 2 things.
1. Access central, affordable, long-term, lovable spaces and land – through projects like Brixton Works or otherwise
2. Find ways to trust, interact with and ultimately to create with each other – through tools like U.Lab** or otherwise
Come on Lambeth. Let’s do this.
**More about U.Lab
U.Lab is a 10-week course that uses a mix of online content and in-person experience to facilitate inner transformation and, as a result, radical societal change. In September–December, 20 Lambeth-based individuals participated in the MIT-led course.
We learned techniques that
- helped us put ourselves in other people’s shoes
- helped us slow down before jumping to conclusions and solutions
- helped us make sense of the bigger picture as a group
Specific tools included group coaching, a specific kind of listening and questioning, a type of theatre, prototyping..
Participants were so inspired by the programme that they are now developing another U.Lab programme – specifically on the theme of food in Lambeth. Watch this space.
