Making collective decisions and navigating conflict and are core activist skills. Conflict is usually viewed as an impediment to reaching agreements and disruptive to peaceful relationships. However, it is the underlying thesis of Consensus that nonviolent conflict is necessary and desirable.
Navigating conflict is a core activist skill. These tips from peacebuilding have the potential to depolarise and de-escalate tense and challenging situations. This is an excerpt from the Nonviolent Community Safety and Peacebuilding Trainers’ Manual which is also available for download on the Commons.
Active listening is a fundamental skill for peacebuilding and social change. It is more than hearing, it involves processing what has been heard and skilfully selecting a response. Active listening serves to encourage the person to tell more and most importantly, communicates to the person that you are interested and listening.
What does it take to build a civil society coalition with the power to shift a city? This interview with Amanda Tattersall, Founder and Coalition Director of the Sydney Alliance, gives some good clues.
Denisse Sandoval shares insights from Amanda Tattersall’s book Power in Coalition: Strategies for Strong Unions and Social Change. We may have seen token coalitions with simple community support in the form of logos on letter heads, but how do we build real power to live out the values of the organisations involved in alliances?
In Hungary, digital campaigning organisation aHang has been winning big and building people power in a difficult political environment. Their homecare campaign was a huge win for Hungarian carers, and people power everywhere.
Here are some simple tips for getting the most out of meetings, relevant to collectives, committees and action groups.