Founded in 1999, Octopus Community Network is a peer-led network of 15 community centres in Islington. The network has been doing amazing work listening to their community and facilitating resident-led social action around (amongst other things) urban growing, youth provision and health & wellbeing.

They have taken on 20 trainee community organisers over the past 12 months, who supported residents during the pandemic and listened to hundreds of local residents. The trainees have been learning both from each other and from experienced community practitioners based at the centres.

Octopus Community Network’s journey with us began in the Summer of 2018, where they received quality-assured training in community organising from two of our expert trainers – Paulette and Moussa.

Recognising the value of the community organising approach, the network began to embrace and embed the Community Organising Framework across their centres. We worked with them to train more of their staff and develop their wider community organising strategy.

Then in March of this year, two of their aspiring community organising trainers, Primrose and Tsigereda, undertook the Award in Community Organising to enable the network to deliver our courses for themselves. This work all led towards them being officially approved as a Social Action Hub this month!

We want to congratulate Octopus Community Network on their achievement and look forward to working closely with them over the coming years.