Toghether we are stronger. Join us!

Together we are stronger. Join us!

Some equality & diversity attendance statistics from when this blog editor was Kwug's attendance monitor

KUWG meeting attendance figures, 6 Jan-to-28 Apr 2014

KUWG meeting attendance figures, 14 Apr-to-14 Jul 2014

KUWG meeting attendance figures,24 Jul-to18 Sep 2014

The above figures were in line with Kingsgate Community Centre term times and the availabity of room bookings for us, while the diversity tags were as prescribed by Kingsgate Community Centre's funder, Camden Council.

Please note that too little publicised Tory Government policy is for community centres to operate 'more like businesses', and 'less like charities'. This means community centres receiving insufficient funding to pay a proper quota of staff, and to become more and more reliant upon volunteers, and possibly excluding not-for-profit bookings.

Is that 'behaving more like a business than a charity'?

Free short art film screening 'KUWG LIFE' on Thursday 11 May at 2:30pm at Kingsgate CC, NW6 2JH

Please come along and support a group that supports local people!
11/05/17 @ 2:30pm @ Kingsgate CC, NW6 2JH

Transcript of flyer:

Free Short Art Film Screening: KUWG LIFE

Are you local to NW6? Are you concerned about local people who need support?

What is the film about? Filmed over 2 years, this is a hidden and obscured camera view of life and interactions of the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group.

Created by embedded member and local socially engaged artist Helen Mandley.

The screening is part of the continued dialogue within the community. KUWG members support people that face:

• Jobcentre Plus 'benefit sanctions'
• ATOS assessments
• evictions, and 
• disabled person's needs. 

We also show solidarity with other local and national groups as austerity measures are cutting across the country. KUWG also leaflet and advise outside local jobcentres, housing offices and ATOS assessment centres.

KUWG organises local protests such as against the planned closure of Kilburn Jobcentre and organised vigils for local benefit claimants that have died due to stress placed upon them by jobcentres.  KUWG also advises anyone affected by imposed jobcentre regulations  amongst many other issues that arise as austerity measures hit an all time high in this country.

Helen Mandley feels that discussion, interaction and acts of translation are invaluable to her socially engaged art practice; and KUWG are a group doing just that!

PLEASE COME ALONG AND SUPPORT A GROUP THAT SUPPORTS LOCAL PEOPLE

11 May 2017 @ 2:30pm @ Kingsgate Community Centre
Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH

https://helenmandleyartist.wixsite.com/website

Next KUWG meeting will be on Thursday 5 January 2017

Kwug will return to the Small Hall at Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH on Thursday, 5 January 2017.(1)

The Small Hall doors open to us from 3pm on that day, and the meeting should start at about 3:15pm. After a round of introductions, those present will attempt to help with casework presented to them. There will be a break of about 10 mins around 4pm, before the meeting reconvenes to discuss other agenda matters. Priority between 5pm and 5:20pm will be given to any other casework not dealt with before the break, and from 5:20pm till 5:30pm we will focus on tidying and clearing the room for a 5:30pm exit.

Meanwhile, you might catch a glimpse of Kwuggie singers bringing Xmas cheer to a jobcentre other than Kilburn.

Note

1. http://www.kingsgatecommunitycentre.org.uk/4-2/find-us/

Internet searchers like welfare advocacy and Tony Cox — DWP clearly do not!

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

In his 2009 speech to Green Party Trade Union group fringe, Peter Allen (Advice Worker and a member of UNISON) advocated Green Party members holding something like 'advice surgeries' for economically vulnerable people, to help inform them of their rights. (Post title Welfare Rights and Advice, Friday 27 March 2009 (1) Further video parts at that Green Party Trade Union Group blog post, which is on the old Green Party Trade Union Group blog. The videoing was done by Peter Murry [no 'a' in the spelling of his surname] of Neasden.) 


Since then, against a backdrop of ever greater Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) nastiness against benefit claimants, there has been an upsurge of self-help groups offering advice and advocacy to benefit claimants and others. These include the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) in North London and the Scottish Unemployed Workers Network (SUWN). (2) (3) The advertising 'strap line' of the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group is, "Never attend anywhere official alone," and that imperative has certainly helped validate claimant's vulnerability when they attend disability benefit assessments. KUWG is affectionately known as 'Kwug' and its caseworkers — through diligent persistence and becoming informed — have helped people get the benefits to which they are entitled.

Too often, the stage at which people have come to Kwug with their cases have already been turned down for the disability benefit for which they have applied — and they have not been accompanied in their original benefit assessment 'medical', nor received proper advice about what documentation to supply in making their claim. The more 'lead time' between their appeal to a Kwug meeting for assistance and their assessment or tribunal, the greater their chances of a successful outcome, generally. Partly for that reason, Kwug meets every Thursday a community centre that is very accessible.

What happened to state benefits after someone who did not even do a Google search for 'Incapacity Benefit test' declared the majority of Incapacity Benefit claimants bogus?

Tony Blair appointee 'welfare reform guru' and former investment banker David Freud's February 2008 ill-informed and badly researched statements about 'benefit fraud' seem to have signposted the 'norms' by which the DWP cuts benefits by cutting the number of disability benefit claimants and more perceived to be 'legitimate'. Then head of Child Poverty Action Group Kate Green — now a Labour MP — observed that Freud had clearly not done a Google search on 'Incapacity Benefit test'.(4) He is now installed in the House of Lords as Conservative Welfare Reform Minister and benefits sanctions often hit very vulnerable people who are not only not fit for work, but also unfit for the Jobseekers Allowance 'conditionality' that being turned down for Employment & Support Allowance has forced them into.(5) 

The conditionality attached to 'entitlement' for benefits is now extremely hard and demeaning as blogger and NUJ member Kate Belgrave | 'Talking with people dealing with public sector cuts' has discovered through talking to and accompanying benefit claimants.(6) The extent of benefit sanctions and the way that they have been administered without the decision maker facing the claimant have been highlighted respectively by U. Glasgow Law Professor Dr David Webster and by Kate Belgrave.(7) (8) "Those who give the order seldom see the mess it makes" and the DWP clearly do not want the public to know that mess and how it was caused.(9)

DWP on the hunt for much needed welfare advocates — and not to give them paid work doing what they do so well!

Now, it is not just claimants as claimants that the DWP is attacking, it is also the advocates of DWP claimants that they are attacking, as evidenced in the case of Tony Cox of the SUWN, as outlined at The Crown versus Tony Cox — and welfare activists everywhere: Part 2, Round 1.(10) Observing and listening to Tony Cox's input at a meeting served as part of screenwriter Paul Laverty's research for Cannes Film Festival Palme D'Or winning film 'I Daniel Blake', directed by Ken Loach.(11) (12)

I believe I am not suited to doing the direct advocacy stuff, but have empathy in talking to fellow claimants and an understanding of what they are subjected to. That and Internet and writing skills help me blog while I have never been successful at jobsearch enough to get more than 'precarious' positions from the time I became a jobseeker in 1977 till the time I claimed ESA in early 2009 — which I later won through tribunal in December 2009. The extent of 'precarity' in people's socio-economic status has now become so widespread that Prof. Guy Standing has declared 'the precariat' a 'new dangerous class'.(13) 

As a jobseeker with an invisible disability, I was all-too-frequently timed out of what 'supports' were available to disabled jobseekers even before these much harsher times. Through all those years of diligent jobsearch and skill building — largely without official support and much official hindrance by ignorant government employees — my sum total of waged employment amounted to a grand total of 17 months, the last 11 months of which was so part time that I was still claiming Jobseekers Allowance and submitting part-time earnings forms at the jobcentre at my fortnightly signing sessions. The stinginess of the '£5 earnings disregard' badly impacted on me in those 11 months.(14) Stress led to weakening of my immune system to the point that I suffered cellulitis in my legs and became increasingly forgetful at just 52 years old.(15) (16)

As a result of Kilburn Unemployed blogging, I have been able to observe a huge interest in the case of Tony Cox. Since I uploaded a blog post on Thursday 17 June in the evening about Tony Cox and welfare advocacy, that blog post has attracted enough viewings to make it the #5 in the 'All Time (May 2010 to June 2016) Most Viewed' blog posts of the Kilburn Unemployed blog.(17)

Posts

Entry	Pageviews
KUWG with Simon of Occupy Highlight What Goes on a... 1 Apr 2014	3285
Unite Community-sponsored Inequality Bus Tour goes... 23 Apr 2014, 2 comments	1026
Harlesden Neighbourhood Forum Launch - Weds 15 Apr... 3 Apr 2015	690
12 month investigation exposes stark reality faced... 4 Feb 2014	574
Roll up at Kilburn Jcp on Thurs 23 June, 09:45 to ... 17 Jun 2016	446
What councils don't tell you about the enforcement... 20 Mar 2013	443
Benefits sanctioned? Take mass action! Write your ... 14 Nov 2014	405
Our Work Capability Reassessment Workshop 11 Nov 2011	353
High Court challenge vs WCA, Monday 21 October 201... 21 Oct 2013	351
The Council Tax scandal 12 May 2015	297

The price of liberty is constant vigilance!

Amendment to the above regarding sourcing of viewings for 

The presupposition of the author is at fault in identifying the source of viewings for Roll up at Kilburn Jcp on Thurs 23 June, 09:45 to 10:45 in support of Tony Cox and welfare activists everywhere as based on Internet searches. Internet searches have indeed sourced most of the viewings for Kilburn Unemployed blog posts in the previous six years of this blog, as this 'All Time Stats' copy and paste illustrates:

Traffic Sources (May 2010 to June 2016)

Entry	Pageviews
https://www.google.co.uk/	3455
http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.com/	1030
http://www.vampirestat.com	405

A look at the viewing sources for the blog as a whole reveals a break in that trend not only for the past week but also for the past month:

Traffic Sources (24 May 2016 to June 2016)

Entry	Pageviews
http://m.facebook.com/	325
https://www.google.co.uk/	96
http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.com/	61

That revelation, however, does not invalidate the importance of supporting Tony Cox and welfare advocates everywhere. There has been a huge take up of viewings from one Facebook source.

Links

1. http://gptublog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/blog-post_27.html
2. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk
3. https://scottishunemployedworkers.net
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7223687.stm
5. http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/election-2015-greens-demand-ids-apology-for-misleading-voters-on-benefit-deaths/
6. http://www.katebelgrave.com/2016/03/sick-and-disabled-and-cant-walk-upstairs-to-jsa-signon-too-bad-youre-only-good-for-contempt/
7. https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/benefit-sanctions-britains-secret-penal-system
8. http://www.katebelgrave.com/2016/06/making-people-wait-to-find-out-if-theyll-be-sanctioned-is-truly-sick/
9. http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/how-a-single-word-shows-dwp-has-finally-owned-up-on-benefit-deaths/
10. https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/2016/06/09/the-crown-versus-tony-cox-and-welfare-activists-everywhere-part-2-round-1/
11. https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/2016/06/18/message-of-support-from-paul-laverty/
12. https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/daniel-blake-first-trailer-ken-133731143.html
13. http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-precariat-9781849664561/
14. http://theonlygreenroom.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/benefit-claimants-need-firmer.html Title: Benefit claimants need firmer safeguards, not tougher sanctions
15. https://uk.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylc=X1MDMjE0MjQ3ODk0OARfcgMyBGZyA3lmcC10LTQyMwRmcjIDc2EtZ3AEZ3ByaWQDBG5fZ3BzAzEwBG9yaWdpbgN1ay55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzEEcHFzdHIDBHF1ZXJ5A2NlbGx1bGl0aXMEc2FjAzEEc2FvAzE-?p=cellulitis&fr=yfp-t-423-s
16. http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/7-common-causes-of-forgetfulness-201302225923
17. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/tony-cox-welfare-advocacy-demo-kilburn-jcp-thurs-23-jun-2016-0945-1045.html

Please ask your MP to attend Portcullis House event against forced adoptions on Tues 7th June

A child protection social worker warns us about the government’s latest plans:

The “undeserving poor” have lost their council homes; lost their benefits and lost their community services; why not make it easier to lose their children too?

Read on:

Dear Friends, Please can you help us by asking your MP to attend the meeting below? Find your MP here.
Suffer the Little Children Stopping forced separations of children from mothers in UK and US Tuesday, 7 June 2016 6.30 - 8.30pm Grimond Room, Portcullis House, Bridge Street, SW1A 2LW   Westminster    All welcome.(Portcullis House is part of the Houses of Parliament - please allow time to go through security) Kindly sponsored by Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead & Kilburn Guest speaker: Richard Wexler, Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, USA, and author of Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse   Other speakers:   Cristel Amiss, Black Women’s Rape Action Project  Nicola Mann, Women Against Rape   Anne Neale, Legal Action for Women   Kim Sparrow, Single Mothers’ Self Defence  Mothers fighting for their children Suffer the Little Children – a Dossier by Legal Action for Women documenting mothers’ struggle in the family courts in England, will be launched at the meeting. Following the US-model, forced separations of mothers and children have increased massively in the UK in the past 20 years, especially against those of us on low incomes, of colour, immigrant, teenagers, with learning difficulties … Sexism, racism, domestic violence, usually suffered by the mother, poverty, homelessness … all influence decisions to remove children from their mothers. Everyone knows that mothers are children’s first line of protection and defence, but this is increasingly denied. Early intervention by the state in the name of protecting children has led to cruel and traumatic separation rather than compassionate support. One third of children report being abused while in care. It has spawned an industry which feeds on the attack on parents’ capacity to raise their own children. As“emotional abuse and neglect” have become a more common basis for intervention than physical or sexual abuse, the discretionary powers of social workers have dangerously expanded. In Scotland, the new ‘Named Person’ legislation is being challenged in the Supreme Court as it raises concerns that the state is undermining families by taking parenting powers upon itself. A child protection social worker warns us about the government’s latest plans:
	The “undeserving poor” have lost their council homes; lost their benefits and lost their community services; why not make it easier to lose their children too?
But mothers, grandmothers and other carers in the US and UK are forming self-help groups and fighting back.  Called by: Legal Action for Women law@allwomencount.net  020 7482 2496  http://legalactionforwomen.net

Please ask your MP to attend Portcullis House event against forced adoptions on Tues 7th June

The event is actually at Portcullis House, a separate part of the Houses of Parliament from the House of Commons. Go to http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/please-ask-your-mp-to-attend-portcullis-house-event-against-forced-adoptions-on-tues-7th-june.html

THAG (The Housing Action Group)

The Housing Action Group meets at Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month, organised by the Community Organisers at Kingsgate.

Adopting similar structure to KUWG meetings, THAG focuses of course on people's housing issues starting with the casework that they bring. Got a housing proble? Bring it to THAG! The next meeting will be on Tuesday 14 April from 12 Noon to 2pm.

The Housing Action Group meets 24/02/2015, 12pm-2pm at Kingsgate Community Centre

Samantha Lewis, a Community Organiser based at Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, Kilburn, NW6 2JH writes:

Hi everyone
Just a reminder the housing action group meeting is this coming Tuesday 12-2pm @ Kingsgate Community Centre look forward to seeing you all
regards 
Sam

Like KUWG, The Housing Action Group is a self-help organisation that helps people with their casework. For further details, contact Samantha.Lewis AT corganisers.org.uk 

How to get there by public transport, cycling and/or walking