Lambeth Women's Project

Last updated

Lambeth Women's Project
Formation1979
Dissolved2012
Location
  • 166a Stockwell Road, Lambeth, London
Formerly called
Lambeth Girl's Project

Lambeth Women's Project was a women's organisation located at 166a Stockwell Road in Stockwell, Lambeth, South London that provided counselling and a range of other services to women in the area. [1]

Contents

History

It was founded by a group of women youth workers [2] in 1979 as Lambeth Girl's Project. [3] The women's project provided a space for various community groups to meet, as well as services for women including counselling, sexual-health advice, meditation, mentoring, crafts, yoga, art, and music. Over 150 women used the space each month. [4] [5]

Some of the proceeds from Ladyfest London in 2002 were used to buy a drumkit for the space. [6] In 2007 Ladies Rock Camp, organised by Nazmia Jamal and Liz Riches, was held in the project's building. Post-punk band The Raincoats gave a talk and performed there on the opening night. [6] [7]

It closed in 2012 after being evicted from their location by Stockwell Primary School and Children's Centre, who had been handed management of the building by Lambeth Council. [4] [8] [9] 12 volunteers, including mothers, staged a sit-in at the building to protest the eviction. [10] A pot banging protest was held during the occupation. [11]

The history of the organisation is preserved at Lambeth Archives, catalogued by archivist and youth worker Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski who had been a member of the project. [12] The LWP blog was also preserved as part of the UK Web Archive. [13]

Writing in 2024, Nydia A. Swaby identifies Lambeth Women's Project as "deeply inspired" by Amy Ashwood Garvey who opened the first Black women's centre in London in 1954. [5]

References

  1. "Get back to counselling". News Shopper . 23 January 2002. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
  2. "Lambeth Girls Project". yvonnefield.com.
  3. "Ain Bailey: Atlantic Railton". Serpentine Galleries. Retrieved 6 October 2025.
  4. 1 2 Grant, Catherine (2022). A Time of One's Own: Histories of Feminism in Contemporary Art. Duke University Press. ISBN   9781478023470.
  5. 1 2 Swaby, Nydia A. (2024). Amy Ashwood Garvey and the future of Black feminist archives. Lawrence & Wishart. pp. 168–170. ISBN   9781913546397.
  6. 1 2 Ahaiwe Sowinski, Ego; Jamal, Nazmia (2019). "10 Love & Affection: The Radical Possibilities of Friendship Between Women of Colour". In Emejulu, Akwugo; Sobande, Francesca (eds.). To Exist is to Resist - Black Feminism In Europe (PDF). Pluto Press. p. 136. ISBN   9780745339481.
  7. "Guest Curator: Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski". Her Noise Archive. 14 October 2015. Retrieved 6 October 2025.
  8. Burin, Yula; Sowinski, Ego Ahaiwe (2014). "sister to sister: developing a black British feminist archival consciousness". Feminist Review (108): 112–119. ISSN   0141-7789.
  9. Brown, Nicholas (17 June 2025). "Publishing as insurgency: Black and South Asian women artists transforming feminist magazines". Journal of Gender Studies: 23. doi:10.1080/09589236.2025.2520533. ISSN   0958-9236.
  10. "Mothers stage sit-in at Stockwell primary school over poster on girls' mutilation". The Evening Standard . 20 June 2012. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  11. "Ain Bailey: Atlantic Railton". Serpentine Galleries .
  12. The National Archives. "Lambeth Women's Project". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 20 August 2025.
  13. "Ain Bailey and Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski in conversation with Rosalie Doubal" (PDF). Institute of Contemporary Arts . Retrieved 20 June 2025.

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