LAST MINUTE SPRING GATHERING in Poland!
April 24-30, Warsaw
Dears,
After the meeting in Nottigham, we came back to Poland with many ideas and full of energy. Thank you all for that!
We had started think about orginizing a meeing in Warsaw about RtF and we made it on March 14th. During this meeting we talked about RtF’s goals, assumptions, tools and actions. We presented few projects from Austria, France and UK. Thanks again for big support and presense from SoliLa! collective. After presentation we had a disscussion about situation in Poland – especially in the context of the re-privatization of land and buildings, which are now one of the biggest problems in warsaw. Next day (March 15) we organised a walk for people interested in creating new collective in Warsaw That day we decided to start occupy a part of land – area of city gardens near the city center (something like 20 minutes from the c.c.) and near the river.
The situation of city gardens:
City gardens were created in the 70s by the Warsaw workplaces (time of communism in Poland). These were divided between workers. After more than 40 years, 5 developers purchased the claim to the land in the process of re-privatization. The legal situation is very complicated, but when we look at it, we can see the blatant fraud. The activities of companies lead to intimidate people who benefited from the gardens. Very often these people are after 60 years old and they are retired. They are intimidated by looters , several small wooden houses burned. Two years ago (the situation lasts for almost seven years) the companies throughout the electricity and prevented access to water. They also forbade any changes or repairs under the threat of refusal a compensation for people.
Nearby areas belong to the Natura 2000 sites, but it did not save them from developer’s devastation. That’s because we decided to strat an ecological project to publicize the problem and save this beautiful and important area.
What we do:
Many people from the area of city gardens are very positive attitude, but they are afraid to make a deeper relationship. We try to work with them and help them in renewal their gardens. We occupy about 6 abandoned parcels (there is much more of them) with small wooden houses, build first constructions, sollar collector and we plant first seeds. But still we are very small collective, about 5-6 people, in big area with a lot of work: cleaning, plating, building, constructing.
That’s because we decided to organize a LAST MINUTE SPRING GATHERING: April 24-30. We’re planing some workshops, discussions and – of course – collective work in gardens.
We know that it’s not the best time and there is a lot of work in your places, but – if some of you have time and possibilities – please feel invited
If you have any questions or suggestions please write: reunion@grrlz.net
Cheers,
Basia & Oskar & all collecive