About Think&Do Camden

Camden’s ‘ThinkandDo’ Pop Up is a new community space to give people in Camden the chance to come together to develop ideas and projects tackling the climate and ecological crisis. The creation of a new civic space is a direct follow on from Camden’s Citizens’ Assembly on the Climate Crisis .

The ThinkandDo space is being run in an experimental and participatory way based on discussions from a wide range of partners who met at a co-design workshop held on 16th October 2019. They agreed that physical spaces can provide the platform for different people to come together in a way that makes them feel at home and part of a community.

There is currently no dedicated space for people in Camden to come together to talk about their responses to the climate and ecological crisis. These responses can include emotional responses such grief as well as new actions to change lifestyles, consumption, culture as well as greener planning and budgetary provisions to reshape Camden in line with the Camden Action Plan Consultation and the new Climate Action Plan that will be adopted later in 2020.

ThinkandDo is currently located on Kentish Town High Street (315 Kentish Town Road, opposite Kentish Town Library, London, NW5 2TJ).

It is open from 8am – 6pm Mondays to Saturday and there two evenings a week till 9pm for talks and evening events.

As the space in Kentish Town is temporary, we are looking into other premises to continue ThinkandDo.

To ensure everyone can get involved in climate action, we are also planning to create a starter kit or tool kits to help others start their own Think & Do spaces such as in libraries, schools, university sites and local businesses.

If you would like to create your own ThinkandDo space, please get in touch via the contact form.

ThinkandDo came about from Camden citizen’s deep concern about climate change and their desire to get involved in co-creating solutions that tackle climate change and also help social inclusion and cohesion.

Camden has a long history of using citizens’ assembly and participatory approaches to get people involved in decision-making and be active citizens. In response to students strikes and protests by Extinction Rebellion in April 2019, the Council readily agreed to hold a Citizens’ Assembly as part of Camden’s “climate emergency” declaration.

Camden became the first council in the UK to hold a Citizens’ Assembly which met over July 2019 and received over 600 ideas for action. The final report and 17 recommendations of the Assembly were discussed at the Full Council meeting on 7th October, when the Council unanimously agreed to take forward all these recommendations. Prompted by Cllr Gould and Camden environmental leader, Farhana Yamin, the ‘ThinkandDo’ pop up space was created to continue the civic collaboration among and between citizens so everyone could learn about the Assembly’s work and could bring forward additional imaginative ideas and projects. The Council found a premise on Kentish Town Rd it could quickly convert into the ThinkandDo space in October and convened a workshop on 14th October attended by nearly 100 people to help co-design the new space.

The name “ThinkandDo” is deliberate because it signals that each and everyone of us needs to (re)think our roles and choices and all of us need to do something differently in response to the planetary emergency. The activities in ThinkandDo encourage new conversations, reflections, connections and encourage learning by doing.

From October – December, more than 80 workshops, trainings, talks and “hackathons” took place to raise awareness, create connections as well as to develop ideas and projects that would reduce emissions as well as make Camden more biodiverse and socially inclusive. You can find a list of these here [link].
Additionally, there was always a welcome cup of tea for everyone and for all evening events free vegetarian meals made by volunteers were served.

A community café run by Vegbox serving locally sourced and cooked food will be opening from early February. They will continue to serve free tea so please drop by for a chat and update on what is going on.
We are hoping to run more events and workshops, but we need you to bring new ideas and projects that you would like to develop.

ThinkandDo is a community initiative run by volunteers from local community groups.

The main partners to date are listed below. Together, we have formed an informal planning team.

But it is important to note that ThinkandDo is community and citizens led initiative. There are many individuals and organisations who are helping who not listed on the website and we are trying to engage and learn about all the other amazing initiatives and actions going on in Camden.

We welcome all those who are keen to get involved to get in touch or drop into the ThinkandDo space at Kentish Town.

Drop by in person or contact us via the contact form on this website. We need more volunteers to help us run the café and the programme of activities.