In this issue of Roma News and Views, Aliana Michalewicz sits down with her mum Sonia to learn more about their fascinating, famous family history rooted in music and dance, how they brought this from Poland to Glasgow, and their hopes for the future.

From bank robberies to links to the slave trade, the southside has homed a variety of radical social and political histories. In this piece we explore some of the area’s forgotten heritage and dive deeper to uncover the legacy behind these familiar spots.

Once labelled the ‘worst for fly-tipping in Glasgow’, before the end of last year you would have found Kingarth Lane at Bowman Street full of sofas, mattresses, carpets, fridges and bags of household rubbish. Then in November 2023 the Lane Community group was successful in getting gates erected with the hope that they would bring an end to the endemic fly tipping issue. 

In this series of articles, we hear from resident, Aoife Hutton, who was tired of seeing litter on her street and started taking care of it herself. What started as a solo two-hour morning litter pick has evolved into a monthly Govanhill-wide litter picking group with community groups and residents.

Community organisations are doing impactful work to support the neighbourhood, but short-term public funding cycles make it difficult for them to plan ahead, leaving them struggling to survive. We spoke with some local organisations to find out their experiences with the current funding cycles.

This year, the Nordic Music Days Festival was held in Glasgow for the first ever time, making its Scottish debut. We went along to The Legend of Kuokkamummo, a performance that combined Finnish storytelling and Scottish music.

In this new series, we’re exploring Govanhill’s heritage, street by street – starting with Butterbiggins Road. Once an 18th-century hamlet for travelling communities, Butterbiggins evolved from a rural outpost to an industrial hub, and later into the residential street we know today.

On Novermber, over half of the US population relected Donald Trump as their President for the next four years. The world held it's breathe and watched on as such an important election played out, one which will have a major impact on not just the US but the rest of the world. We asked Govanhill locals hailing from the US for their reactions following his win.

We spoke with photographer Morwenna Kearsley about Apparatus, her first major-scale solo exhibition at Strange Field – the old Dalmarnock print factory on French Street.

We Incite This Meeting is a powerful performance that invites the audience to discuss women’s rights and question: “What remains to be done, and how are we going to do it?” 

As MILK gear up to close their Vicky Road location and move to a brand new space on Cathcart Road, we spoke to co-founder Angela Ireland about the change. We also reveal who’s moving into their old space.

In this series of articles, we hear from residents who had enough of fly-tipping and decided to take matters into their own hands.  Dana Cherepkova, shares more from her first community meal on the often fly-tipped Kingarth Lane. After a quick spring clean, it was transformed into a wonderful space to meet the neighbours, share a meal, a collaborative project between residents, supported by community food project Kin Kitchen.

Glasgow’s housing shortage, combined with rising rents and Govanhill's growing popularity, has resulted in a highly competitive rental market where it often feels like landlords hold all the power. Having moved flats almost every year for the past five years, here are a few key lessons one renter learned along the way.

Meet the couple behind Rabbet, a newly opened framers and arts supplies store at 571 Pollokshaws Road. 

At Rags to Riches, the reuse and upcycling branch of Govanhill Baths Community Trust (GBCT), we are excited to introduce the Southside Climate Directory, a new online resource. The directory is designed to help residents of Govanhill and the surrounding area, access sustainable solutions locally.

To find out more about a proposed new urban park below the M8, we went along to the design launch and spoke with to local residents about the ambitious transformation which could happen on their doorstep. 

In this article, taken from our previous heritage issue, our Greater Govanhill Photography Group attempt to capture the transient nature of life in our city, as part of our project to document the area, and build our own photographic archive.

In our last issue, we asked our photography team to look at old pictures of places in Govanhill and take new pictures of those same places today. In this article we share the results of that photo challenge assigned to the group for our local heritage issue.

کس طرح پرانی کیسٹس کی ایک بڑی تعداد پاکستانی تارکین وطن کی تاریخ اور زبانوں کی جانکاری کا ذریعہ بن گئی۔ ٹیپ لیٹرز پروجیکٹ کو بہت جلد گلاسگو،ایڈنبرا اور ڈنڈی میں ہونے والی نمائش میں پیش کیا جائے گاجس میں مقامی باسیوں کی کہانیاں دکھائیجائیں گی۔

JR Ewan, co-founder of Glasgow’s Southside Studios, is an artist and maker whose journey is marked by his family’s legacy and his own creative evolution. In this edition of Behind the Portrait he shares his insights into his creative process and his experiences working with diverse artists at Project Ability and his own Southside Studios.