Kinning Park Complex
Kinning Park Complex (KPC), refers to both an organisation and to a place - an old red sandstone school building - built in 1916. Following the closure of the school the building served as a Neighbourhood Centre for twenty years. Slated for closure in 1996, a group of the centre’s users and supporters began an occupation of the building. Their success allowed the building to remain open under the management of a community organisation - Kinning Park Complex. The organisation today continues to be a beacon of community activity and support.
The KPCafé, Photo by Kinning Park Complex
Projects hosted by Kinning Park Complex are designed to bring people together.
These include:
The KPCafé, a pay-what-you-want dining experience where food is prepared by qualified Chefs and a team of volunteers. KPCouturé, a fashion brand with the aim to diversify conversations around upcycling by hosting workshops within the community with plastic waste from the workshops being re-used to create jewellery sold to raise funds to reinvest into KPC. And more recently, A-OK, Acts of Organised Kindness, a project that focuses on neighbourhood solidarity, seeks to involve all key local stakeholders to create a coordinated community response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The building itself is currently undergoing a renovation that will transform the 1916 school building into a fit-for-purpose community hub to allow the organisation to fulfil the aims of encouraging the development of new ideas, providing support for the most vulnerable and supporting those who want to make the neighbourhood a better place to be.
Kinning Park Complex (KPC) is a centre for social enterprise, communities, citizenship and wellbeing. We are a membership-led community anchor organisation and our 3 story former Victorian school building is home to events spaces, offices, co-working space and artist studios. As well as ensuring that our organisation is run as a sustainable and professional social enterprise, we support the development of other social enterprises, community projects and campaigns. Our halls are home to a wide range of community activity, organised by KPC and by those that use our building or are based there. Our Social Programmes are aimed at improving health and wellbeing and increasing and reducing social isolation within our communities and our Membership Services are aimed at increasing social capital and participation within our neighbourhood, our organisation and on the wider civic level. Our main projects in 2020 have been a neighbourhood solidarity project in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the reopening of our community cafe as a safe place for people to meet and eat face-to-face, the development of a Local Place Plan and the complete refurbishment and expansion of our building.
Martin Avila, Director - Kinning Park Complex
From the outset, the organisation is funded through the sales or rental of spaces within the building, membership donations as well as project-specific funding.
The renovation is being funded through a number of capital development grant funds, most notably: the National Lottery and The Scottish Government Regeneration Capital Grant Fund (RCGF). A number of supporting funding pots including Robertson Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation and Climate Challenge Fund have been drawn to the project to fund specific aspects for community and environmental benefit.
Header Image: Community outside KPC, Photo by Kinning Park Complex