The Ground
The grounds and house are owned by KuBiB e.V. and are home to several connected projects and ways of living and working together.
On the ground floor, cellar, and part of the first floor is the Arruda Anti-Discriminatory Seminar House, where we host community events, workshops, retreats, and sometimes larger gatherings.
Part of the first floor is our collective space and is used by our support network and friends.
The grounds are also home to Rabelades Farm, a Black queer-led, afroecological farming initiative. The farm grows food, reclaims land and African agricultural knowledge, while creating spaces for community, learning, and connection.
There is a lot of outdoor space around the house, including a garden and areas where people can spend time together or find some quiet. The forest starts right next to the grounds, so it is very easy to go into the woods for a walk, a bike ride, or simply to spend some time in nature.
Arruda Collective
Reclaiming the countryside
KuBiB e.V. is a FLINTA- and queer-led, intersectional, self-organized initiative run by the Arruda Collective and Rabelades Farm, working for social, gender, and ecological justice in rural East Germany.
At the heart of our political work is the Arruda Anti-Discriminatory Seminar House — a low-barrier space for groups and communities who are affected by and/or are fighting against discrimination to organize themselves, gather, retreat, network, and hold workshops in a safer and supportive environment.
Alongside running the Anti-Discriminatory Seminar House, we organize events, discussions, and educational activities that bring together anti-racist struggles, queer-feminist struggles, and struggles for environmental justice and sustainability.
We are committed to creating a community space that is aware of and sensitive to different forms of discrimination, including gender oppression, ableism, racism, classism, transphobia, and other forms of oppression. We want to create a space where people can come together, share knowledge and experiences, build connections, and support each other.
Our goal is to empower marginalized communities – FLINTA, BIPoC, migrants, refugees, neurodivergent people, and people with disabilities by creating sustainable structures for social and ecological justice in rural areas. We emphasize the importance of access to nature and want to reclaim the countryside as a space for resistance, healing, and collective transformation. Reconnecting with the land is a central part of our approach.
Through courses, educational workshops, events, lectures, and cultural programs, we create opportunities to learn, exchange, question, and develop tools to advocate for a society free from discrimination. These activities also invite us to explore more conscious and responsible relationships with the environment, the land, and our communities.
Our broader vision is to reshape rural spaces into places rooted in solidarity. We are building a network that uplifts marginalized voices and creates new possibilities for communal life without the fear of racist violence and other forms of discrimination.
Arruda Collective is a unique anti-discriminatory meeting and community space in rural Brandenburg, filling a long-standing gap in access to empowerment and anti-discrimination resources created by and for the communities themselves.
Our Team
Our core team is made up of queer FLINTA people who bring different experiences, backgrounds, and forms of knowledge into the space. Our own experiences of navigating discrimination and marginalization are part of what shapes our political work, our understanding of collective care, and the kind of spaces we want to create.
Rabelades Farm
Land – Memory – Belonging
Rabelades Farm is a Black queer-led, afroecological grassroots initiative, run collectively by a team of four Black queer Afro-diasporic people. The farm is dedicated to sustainable farming, community building, and reclaiming the countryside as a space of healing, resistance, and belonging.
Rabelades grows organic food on a small-scale farm and aims to make it accessible to marginalized communities, especially those who are affected by structural racism. Alongside this, creating space for BIPoC communities to connect with land, nature, food, and each other. The farm is rooted in Black queer ecologies and in the sharing of African and Indigenous farming knowledge, bringing together food justice, land stewardship, collective care, and Black liberation.
For us, farming is not only practical work, but also a political and spiritual practice. While we grow food and tend to the land, we grow community in the same caring way.
Arruda Collective & Rabelades Farm
Our Place
Arruda Collective and Rabelades Farm are two connected grassroots projects rooted in the same place and in a shared political vision. Despite our different focuses, our work is deeply interconnected.
Rabelades Farm was founded by a member of the Arruda Collective/KuBiB e.V. board, and the farm is part of the wider community that has grown around this place. Through our different practices, we bring together anti-discrimination and queer-feminist organizing, Black liberation, ecological justice, land-based practices, food justice, and collective care.
The Arruda Anti-Discriminatory Seminar House creates space for communities to gather, organize, learn, retreat, and build collective power. Rabelades Farm brings another dimension to this work through farming, food, access to land, and a Black queer ecological approach.
For us, social justice and ecological justice cannot be separated from questions of who has access to land, nature, food, safety, and community.
Working together allows us to share knowledge, resources, infrastructure, and relationships, while creating different ways for people to connect with the place.
Both are part of an ongoing effort to reclaim rural space as a place of resistance, healing, belonging, and collective transformation.
