New Year, New Action for Transformation
As Australia’s horrific bushfire season continues Alex Kelly shares suggestions for people new to climate activism who want to take action.
Tag
Resilience
Resilience based organizing
Resilience-Based Organizing departs from traditional organising approaches to address the reality of the ecological crisis. It involves 3 core ingredients: Reclaim Our Labor; Contest for Power, Create a Crisis of Governance; Lead With Vision.
Emotional health and our response to a changing climate
Psychologist Bronwyn Gresham talks about the Mental Health impacts of climate change. She outlines the value of compassion as a support for people responding effectively to climate change.
Holding our groups together in hard times
When social change campaigns experience setbacks it’s understandable this can lead to difficulties in activist groups. Here are some tips and further resources for holding groups together in hard times.
How to build a resilient culture of resistance in hard times
US activist and educator Daniel Hunter shares important tips for sustaining ourselves and our movements in the face of challenging times. He outlines seven behaviors that we could incorporate into our groups so we can keep taking powerful and strategic actions.
Overcoming the Top 3 Challenges to Self-Care
These videos introduce skills to work through common challenges around self-care: limited time; feeling guilty; and not actually working to nourish or support ourselves.
The Little Book of Power
The goal of this book is to help become more aware of your own relationship with power. Despite the many negative associations and memories we have about power (mostly it’s misuse), power isn’t good or bad, and it is necessary.
A Resource for Activists Working Through Trauma
We need to talk about how we both prepare ourselves for, and support each other through our responses to stress and trauma, whether it be from police brutality, another institutional force, or from conflict within our own communities.
Balance or Burnout?
A useful model for understanding activist burnout and how to avoid it from the Transitions Towns movement. Includes a downloadable worksheet with prompts for reflection.
In the Tiger’s Mouth Empowerment Guide: A Book Review
A review of Katrina Shield’s ‘In The Tiger’s Mouth: An Empowerment Guide for Social Action’. What most distinguishes this books is its emphasis on three elements not often considered in other campaigning texts: self-awareness, collaboration, and self-care.
Maintaining Group Morale and Motivation
Group morale is a key contributor to the success of a group, increasing cohesion, reducing burnout and preventing activist turnover. Build team relationships; resolve conflicts and improve communication; and celebrate success.
Group Strategies to Prevent Stress and Burnout
A group’s culture can have a big impact on the likelihood of stress and burnout for members and staff. It’s possible to create a group culture that supports self-care, balance and sustainable work loads and patterns.
Stress Management and Burnout Prevention
Physical, emotional & spiritual renewal is crucial to looking after ourselves for the long haul. Tips on how activists can manage high stress.
Consciousness Raising
Consciousness raising was a key element of the second wave women’s movement enabling women to recognise that the personal is political. This article gives an overview of group consciousness raising processes relevant for any group based on a shared identity or experience of oppression.
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit: Book Review
Hope in the Dark was written by Rebecca Solnit to help activists and campaigners find hope in times of struggle. Here Matt Ross reviews the American author’s arguments for keeping the faith in times of despair.
Our Hearts in Transition: Book Review
A book review of The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins with emphasis on its insights around the emotional & psychological impact of climate change.
Personal ‘traps’ that contribute to activist burnout
This article explores some of the ‘cognitive errors’ or ‘traps’ that contribute to activist burnout. Read through this list and see if you might need to adjust your perspective, in the interests of your health, wellbeing and effectiveness.
Surviving the ups and downs of Social Movements: The Perception of Failure (Part 2)
In the second part of this article Mark and Paul Engler further explore Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan and its implications for social movements.
Surviving the ups and downs of social movements
We tend to talk about activist burnout as an individualised experience – but the Movement Action Plan, a framework for understanding social movements, factors in perception of failure, providing insights and hope for navigating the downs in movement life.
Home Care in Hungary
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.