About the IDPAD (Hackney) Empowerment Center

There are no dedicated cultural centres committed to acknowledging or celebrating the history of African people in Hackney. This is a disturbing act of social exclusion in the public realm considering the earliest record of the African presence in Hackney is in 1630 for"Anthony, a poore ould negro, aged 105". 

For many decades, Hackney’s African heritage community has often been forced to use our homes, cafes, bookshops, museums, clubs, market spaces, libraries, offices, meeting rooms, gardens, parks, churches, and other informal public spaces to gather in safety for healing, learning and organising. Thankfully, there are some examples of where our Turkish and Kurdish neighbours, local youth hubs and other charitable groups being generous, but this is not enough. There is a need for a substantive, publicly accessible, physical space that can provide some of these functions and services coherently and unashamedly.