After the council essentially declared itself bankrupt in September, residents of Birmingham were determined to keep their city intact. Nick Martin of Sky News met with these individuals.
A few years back, a group of neighborhood residents decided to have their own “tea and social” afternoons in the charming Sons of Rest building in the center of Handsworth Park.
According to volunteer Surinder Guru, “we all hated the isolation of lockdown during COVID so we decided to come together in this building a few times a week.”
They used to bring their own teabags at first. One man then made himself some soup. Then they all agreed to cook soup for each other in turns.
And that developed into an open-to-all community kitchen.
“It’s turning into a meeting place for different groups who don’t normally meet,” Surinder says.
“We get Indian people, white British men and women, white European men and women, we’ve got Afro-Caribbean people, children and older people.”It’s making use of a structure that would never have been sold to anybody.”
