Black Lives Matter UK to fund Black organisations from £1.2m donations

2021 is set to be the year for change as Black Lives Matter UK prepare to fund Black organisations from their donation pool

The UN report was commissioned following the murder of George Floyd last year that sparked worldwide Black Lives Matter protests. Picture: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images.

BLACK LIVES Matter UK will begin funding Black-led organisations across the UK with more than £100,000 of donations.

The BLM movement received up to £1.2m in donations via a GoFundMe appeal, following widespread protests last summer.

On 14 September, the organisation was registered by Adam Elliot Cooper, an academic, Alexandra Wanjiku Kelbert, a PhD student, and Lisa Robinson, a director of a Nottingham-based social enterprise.

Before they could receive donations, they had to register as a community benefit society. They called themselves the Black Liberation Movement UK.

However, there were questions about how the money raised would be distributed, following controversy surrounding US BLM.

“Around 10% to 15% will be donated straight away to Black-led campaigns and organisations that we’re already familiar with and have been working with over the last five years,” Cooper explained to The Guardian.

“These are groups that include educational projects, campaign groups, police monitoring projects, as well as some of the new protest groups, which helped organise at the demonstrations in the summer of last year.”

The releasing of these funds, he believes, comes at a pivotal time in a year that is going to be crucial for independent Black organising.

The announcement comes as activists from the youth group All Black Lives UK (ABLUK), who were behind some of last year’s biggest protests, (including the protest in Bristol that toppled the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston) vowed to return to protesting once lockdown restrictions are lifted.

As more than 260 towns and cities held protests in June and July, British historians described this summer as having the largest anti-racism rallies since the slavery era.

19-year-old Amia, a co-founder of one of the groups did not want to share her last name, but said: “We’re planning more protests, more community outreach, trying to speak to the government, and creating a safe space for Black people.”

Gurpreet Sidhu is the founder of BLM in the Stix, a campaign group launched in August to support activists in rural communities across the UK to fight racism in their local area.

The network now has over 100 members.

They hold regular meetings with members, provide anti-racist resources, mental health support and launched an anti-racism book club to provide further education.

Natasha, a co-founder of ABLUK, expects the year ahead to be a crucial one for those who advocate for anti-racism.

“2020 was just the foundation for what’s going to happen now.”

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