Community Wealth Building
Claude Hendrickson based in Chapeltown, Leeds, represents Leeds Caribbean and African Centre, Leeds Community Homes, and is connected to a range of Community Wealth Building interventions, including a self-build project to address housing disparities for young black men in Yorkshire. Over 30 years ago, he co-founded Frontline Self Build, which involved taking a group of young black men on a self-build journey over five and a half years, resulting in 12 houses and significant construction training experience.
Hendrickson emphasised the long history of cooperative organising within black communites, referencing community practices in the Caribbean such as Pardna. He highlighted the need for better training to improve knowledge about different cooperative models, noting that black communities have often been excluded arguing “they’re not hard to reach, but easy to ignore”. He also co-led a research project with Henri Baptiste, Tom Moore, and Yael Arbell project titled ‘Community-led Housing for All: Opportunities and challenges for black and minority ethnic community-led housing’ published in 2024. Co-operatives have long been integrated into Black and racially minoritised communities across the United Kingdom (UK) to produce social benefit. From member-owned supplementary schools and cultural centres; the community savings systems of Pardna or Susu; to community led housing such as Gida Housing Co-operative currently being incubated by The Ubele initiative in Tottenham with 56 member-owned homes. Due to racial disparities in access to opportunities within the co-operative sector, The Ubele Initiative and Co-operatives UK are inviting people and organisations from, or working with, Black and racially minoritised communities, to share your knowledge or experience of co-operative practice. We're also interested in speaking with people who are not currently members of a co-operative but may have an interest to join one or set one up in the future.
For further information about this work, please visit: https://www.ubele.org/ or contact:
christxpher.oliver@ubele.org - The Ubele Initiative
john.dawson@uk.coop - Community Shares Unit/ Co-operatives UK