10 Great Resources on Activist Wellbeing
Are you an activist experiencing stress or burnout? These articles, videos and tips will help you stay healthy and well while working to change the world.
Tag
Wellbeing_Self care
The Climate Change Empowerment Handbook
Engage more effectively with the challenge of climate change with insights from psychology and The Australian Psychological Society.
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Workshop Facilitation Guide
Has your community experienced a disaster? Do you need to have difficult conversations and build individual and community resilience? This guide has all you need to hold a workshop.
Navigating Trauma in Disaster Relief
This guide is for anyone who is experiencing trauma and/or helping people with their trauma. It is by the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, a grassroots disaster relief network in the US based on the principles of solidarity, mutual aid, and autonomous direct action.
Activism and the power of humour
This paper uses Australian case studies to demonstrate the continued evolution of the use of humour in environmental, peace, and social justice movements.
TED talk: Activism needs introverts
Sarah Corbett introduces us to “craftivism,” a quieter form of activism that uses handicrafts as a way to get people to slow down and think deeply.
TED talk: How to recover from activism burnout
When you’re feeling burned out as an activist, what’s the best way to bounce back? TED talk about creative actions – “playtivism”.
Tips for Election Recovery
Elections can take a heavy toll campaigners, organisers, and anyone else working and hoping for social and ecological justice. Now is a time for looking after ourselves and each other, to get in good shape for what comes next.
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.
Sustaining ourselves as activists
Activist wisdom has been gathered from a survey of nearly 200 about how to sustain ourselves as activists. A great list from those who have been there.
How to stay sane in an ‘always-on’ digital campaigning environment
Social media never stops! Jessie Mawson presented these tips for staying sane to the eCampaigning Forum in 2016.
Nonviolent Community Safety and Peacebuilding Handbook
This handbook is a handy and unique resource for activists and community workers engaged in work for peace at a community level throughout Australia. It includes practical ways to intervene in violence, to transform conflict and to build peace.
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.
From GDP to Wellbeing
The Australian National Development Index presents a new way to measure our wellbeing. At Progress 2017 Professor Fiona Stanley explained just why it’s so important.
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.
Work less: You’ll get more done
Overwork has heavy costs. Working longer hours is dangerous and ineffective. But poor management, the subconscious, workplace culture, and work volume, can each be a barrier to better workplace practices. Thankfully though, these barriers can be overcome.
Book Review of In the Tiger’s Mouth Empowerment Guide
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.
Stress Management and Burnout Prevention
High stress levels and burnout are very common among grassroots activists and community workers. Stress management and physical, emotional and spiritual renewal is crucial to looking after ourselves for the long haul.
Setting goals and changing habits
Setting a life up to sustain activism doesn’t always come easy. Just like in a campaign we’re much more likely to get where we want to go if we’re clear about the intended destination – and if we take effective steps in that direction. These tips are provided to help you reach your healthy goals.