What Have We Been Up To

Hello Family!

We are four months into 2026 and Spring has definitely sprung! We have been super busy already, especially as we come out of the winter months and getting into the groove of the year. Spring is the time where we start and support new campaigns, and bring the learning we did in the winter out into the world. 

We’re sending this out to keep our network informed of what we’ve been learning and doing, and invite you along to our next events - and we really welcome any reflections on the perspectives/resources we share! 

Reflections

In the first few months of the year we:

Hosted an anthology film screening as part of Stroud Film festival! With excerpts from "Twyford rising", short films on "the Colston Four" and "the Battle of Beanfield" and our very own film about the Stroud Water Riots! If you missed it, our film will be out on youtube soon! We also hosted the film "Lute Como Uma Menina (Fight like a Girl)" at the Trinity Rooms, about girls in Sao Paulo occupying their schools to protest closures. Our Roma was invited onto a panel to discuss the film "Gentle Angry Women", and bring a youth perspective to the role of women in political organising.

Discussion groups at our film screening in March

Inducted me, Nettle, into the RYSE. I came up through rent strike, Palestine solidarity and feminist student organising in Manchester and am super excited to finally be working as a part of the RYSE as Media Coordinator. You can hear some more from me in the RYSE 2025 zine, where I talk about understanding disability and mental illness in the context of activism.

This month we have been busy on-boarding the two new members of the Redz team, our Events Coordinator, Ahana, and Building Team Coordinator, Arthur. We got some funding for Redz and after a hiring process where we got to meet loads of new cool young people, we’re super excited to have Arthur and Ahana with us. Ahana has already set up a weekly events clinic from 19.00 on Tuesdays to support people to run their own events at Redz, and Arthur is putting together a team to keep the building beautiful and functioning. 

We attended a march to RAF Fairford to be in solidarity with our Iranian siblings and tell the US and UK government that we will not stand by silently while our land is used to launch bombers. Fairford Airbase has a 3,000m long reinforced runway meaning that it is one of only two bases outside of the US that can launch the large B1 bombers - it is an integral piece of infrastructure to the US’s war machine. We met with some incredible people from across the South-West as well as comrades from Iranians Against War who had come up from London, check out the interviews they did at the march! It was a hot day and a long march, but absolutely vital to keep showing up against US imperialism especially when it is so close to home.

Showing up against US imperialist war!

Learnings

Our internal learning has continued with alternating learning weekly learning circles on class and Ghanaian political history and languages!

 We have been working this year to unpack our middle class tendencies and learn how they show up in our work and culture so that we can push back against them. We started this learning with articles from Dom Hunter’s (author of Chav Solidarity) Substack, which can be found here. From this we have been going through the ways that middle class culture seeps into work places, and pulled out some key takeaways of how we are replicating this and how we can work on them.

We have also been learning loads about Ghana, from the life of Osagyafo Kwame Nkrumah to the education and political systems to Jerry John Rawlings. Much of our learning on Nkrumah came from Basil Davidson’s incredible book Black Star, a beautifully written and very balanced account of his life. Plus, forty minutes every other week on vocab from three indigenous languages: Twi; Ewe; Ga. This is all in preparation for a glocal educational linking process with Young Ghanaians.

Learning Twi, the most widely spoken native Ghanaian language

Upcoming Events

In May we have some comrades coming to stay for an Educators Residential - bringing together two other rad educational organisations to learn from each other. We’re super excited to be hosting this as a way to link up with other young educators, understanding where our similarities and differences lie, and how we can build collaborative relationships to best aid the movement for liberation. 

That’s a wrap on our update! Going forwards we’re going to start doing these monthly, a way for us to keep in touch and track our work.