Meet Abdirahim Hassan, the Founder Coffee Afrik CIC an award-winning lived experience-led community organisation working across Hackney and Tower Hamlets that aims to disrupt established systems and works with and for marginalised folk in a number of different ways.

Coffee Afrik is currently leading seven hubs, across 26 projects, which include a problematic drug use safe space for Muslims, a research lab, an award winning youth hub, two women’s hubs led by and for Muslim women, and a systemic litigation space.

Coffee Afrik have just been awarded £1,000,000 to further expand and scale its reach and model. Our work is inspired by everything rooted in Islam, land justice, reimagining public health and the Black Panther party and its community programming. Coffee Afrik is designed with key principles which include love, care and liberatory harm reduction

Where can you find Abdirahim?

@coffeeafrikcic on instagram and @coffeeafrique on X.

Who/What does Abdirahim want to promote?

Parliament event on the 15th July celebrating our latest research, recent grant award £400,000 and £1,000,000. Handing back our hubs to the community, through a structured governance framework. 

See you next Sunday!

Meet Edward Adonteng, an essayist, poet, artist, gardener and academic from South London. He credits himself as a bridge builder, facilitating discourses on several themes and creating platforms for people to thrive and fully exercise their ingenuity.

Where can you find Edward?

IG: edwardadonteng

Website: https://edwardadonteng.info/ 

Who/What does Edward want to promote?

Edward's Substack. :@edwardadonteng.

Events-wise:

1. Urban Nostalgia Part 2 at the Garden Museum on the 15th July
2. The Forge: A Poetry Lab at Peckham Palms on the 17th July
3. Spirituality and Gardens at Barnes Common coming up on the 26th July.

People can find all of these on my Instagram. 

See you next Sunday!

Meet Naz Hamdi (aka NazfromNewham), a writer, archivist and curator from Newham, east London and she mostly documents music, film, nightlife and culture. 

Where can you find Naz?

@NazfromNewham on all socials

See you next Sunday!

Meet Svetlana Chigozie Onye, a writer, journalist, singer, and climate justice advocate.

She leads The Eco-Anxiety Africa Project (TEAP), which investigates the mental health impacts of climate change on African youth and builds community resilience. She is currently producing a documentary about TEAP’s work.

A contributor to the UNICEF-backed African Youth Position Paper on Climate Change and Health, she is also a Director of the UK Youth Climate Coalition and has spoken at COP29 on transparency and governance. Her journalism centers on climate impacts in the Global South, and she has spoken with MPs on youth inclusion in climate policymaking.

As a singer-songwriter, her music has been played on BBC Radio, KISS, Soul Urge and more, and she was featured on BBC Women’s Hour discussing her songwriting journey. A TuWezeshe Fellow, she was selected for the Writers on the Rise Programme and shortlisted for the Heroica Poetry Prize.

Where can you find Svetlana?

Insta: @storyofsvetlana @hertempestongue @notactuallyradical @teap.africa

Who/What does Svetlana want to promote?

•  My debut EP was released last year and is now on all streaming platforms.
• My newest single ‘Crash Out’ was released last month, also on all DSP’s.
• one of the fav articles I've written: a book is a seed: the power of fiction in shaping just societies (shado mag) - A book is a seed: The power of fiction in shaping just societies
• subscribe to my substack! Her Tempest Tongue: https://open.substack.com/pub/hertempesttongue?r=2mhotf&utm_medium=ios where I’ll be sharing new essays soon.
• follow TEAP on socials to see the work we’re doing across the African continent, building resilience through research, innovation and space-making.

See you next Sunday!

Meet Radhika, a writer, community organiser and certified romantic. She writes fiction about our tangled lives and loves, and is part of a wonderful group in Tower Hamlets using the arts to campaign for food and land justice in gentrifying London.

Experiencing a big grief this year has made her understand how grief and beauty are life-long neighbours. Her cousin Nirali taught her all she know about love, and now she see her in beautiful places everywhere: in blossom trees, in the moon, on the dance floor. 

She believes in the possibility of this world to resist the many cruelties of capitalism and be better. So she also believea in writing postcards, going to demos with your friends, finding one million ways to say I love you to loved ones, that embracing ‘cringe’ and earnestness leads to freedom, and appreciating the feeling of awe moving through her when it does. 

Where can you find Radhika?

Follow our food and land project at @foodjusticeldn, and @raaads for writing things, plus a whole lot of mushy paragraphs about how much I luv my friends. Who/What does Radhika want to promote?

Come see Rukhsati at @theatre503 and follow my beautiful friends doing beautiful work at @abolitionisthealing and @dancewithzah_ 

See you next Sunday!

Meet Samia Dumbuya, a British-born Sierra Leonean who is an advocate for better climate education and for public policies to integrate the principles of climate justice in the shaping of our societies and economies.

Samia is interested in green transitions on the African continent and loves talking about Afrofuturism and natural landscapes across Africa.

They founded The People's Ark, a project focusing on upskilling communities across the UK to gain green technical skills.

Where can you find Samia?

IG - @samiadumbuya

IG - @peoplesark

Linkedin: Samia Dumbuya

Who/What does Samia want to promote?

The People's Ark Launch taking place on the 31st (direct them to the page to find out more)

IG: @fambul and @youngsalone

See you next Sunday

Meet Sara Bafo, a community organizer, youth practitioner and educator. Her work is rooted in envisioning and building transformative educational programs and practices. She has spent over a decade in grassroots movements rooted in abolitionist, anti-imperialist and liberatory principles. 

Where can you find Sara:

sara.bafo - Instagram // SaraSabriye - Twitter

Who/What does Sara want to promote?

Her writing:

 https://healingjusticeldn.org/in-practice/community-grieving-in-endz/

https://shado-mag.com/articles/hear/honouring-our-ancestors-in-activism-in-conversation-with-arowah/

https://shado-mag.com/education/know/what-is-abolition/

https://www.jmb-consulting.co.uk/uncharitablepapers/we-destroy-imperialism

Meet Indira Toussaint – a poet, educator, and all-around culture curator repping Saint Lucia with pride! 

Indira’s work dives into the stories of the Caribbean diaspora, exploring everything from identity and history to the power and beauty of Black and Indigenous resilience.

She’s the co-founder of Twossaints, a vibrant platform that brings the Caribbean to the world through language, culture and the arts. Whether she’s teaching Kwéyòl, crafting poetry that hits you right in the heart, or curating unforgettable cultural experiences, Indira’s all about keeping Caribbean heritage alive—and making it feel fresh, relevant, and global.

Where can you find Indira: @indii45 / @twossaints - Instagram // TwossaintsTV - Youtube 

Who/What does Indira want to promote:

What is Common About the Wealth? - available on spotify and Youtube !

"If you’re vibing with the culture and want to bring a Twossaints storytelling supper club experience to your workplace, head over to www.twossaints.com to get in touch!" 

See you next Sunday

Meet Larissa, a British Caribbean theoretician, movement griot (storyteller), and community organiser from South London with roots in Jamaica, Barbados, and St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Larissa is founding chair of TALAWA, a Black-led collective focused on the power of liberated education and imagination to grasp at the root of social and climate injustice.

At shado, Larissa is a writer, editor, and co-host of the shado-lite podcast which discusses the big social justice issues we often see discussed on social media, supporting our community to move from apathy and overwhelm to collective action and hopeful pathways forward.

Larissa is currently a postgrad student at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and has previously studied in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. She loves language learning, soca music and dancing bachata. Larissa's lifework is driven by faith and fellowship.

Where can you find Larissa:@larissa_kennedy_ / @talawacollective / @shado.mag

Who/What does Larissa want to promote:

She said watch out for all things on @talawacollective and ⁠@shado.mag

See you next Sunday!

Meet Elike, a creative, writer, mover and shaker!

Elike gets into why community is important, their relationship with their dad, their Ewe heritage and how putting in small efforts each day keeps us grounded and working towards our hopes and dreams <3

Where can you find Elike:

• @elike9k on twitter/ig
• www.elike9k.wordpress.com is their site/blog for all their writing

Who/What does Elike want to promote?

• follow @gardenofafruika to join a plant-based cooking community

See you next Sunday!