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Organising and strategizing for transformative power
This training weaves together learning from our āEcology of Social Movements Trainingā with modules on community/political organising and the new municipalism.
Weāre living at a historical point of disruption which contains both great peril and promise. The stalled engine of neoliberal growth, bankrupted political leadership, an increasing sense of distributive injustice, and the fierce urgency of the ecological now are the cracks out of which something new can emerge.
Built around the core of our Ecology of Social Movement training, this is an opportunity for experienced activists and organisers involved in movement thinking and practice from across Europe. Weāll inquire deeply into how our organisations and networks relate to the wider ecology of activism within our movements ā and how these movements relate to wider struggles in the ever changing cultural, socio-political and ecological context. Participants will engage in deep analysis of their own movement practice and ecology. They will gain skills and understanding related to contemporary practices in community and political organising, as well as exploring the challenges of building transversal movements that connect diverse struggles, issues and approaches.
Facilitated by an international team of movement organisers and thinkers, weāll learn to make our activism and organising more powerful and transformative.
Ecology of Social Movements
This core element of the training aims to help us understand the opportunities and threats of this crucial moment and to empower our efforts to contest our future. Weāll explore the life cycle of social movements and seek to learn from social movement history. Weāll survey theories of social change, identifying tensions and complementarities. We will increase our skills in strategising, planning and working for change in the complex ecologies and systems of movements and societies. And we will ask how big picture thinking can inspire and empower our work together.
The course blends a participatory inquiry methodology with the Ulex teamās framework for strategic analysis and deeper political reflection. Participants will engage in deep analysis of their own movement practice and ecology. The training will support the development of creative and strategic responses for radical social change.
This course involves deep and critical thinking, so participants should:
We will select participants to bring together a range of people from diverse movements and across Europe to share and learn from each other.
We will explore:
Ā Key areas of study and reflection include:
Ā Theories of Social Change
Ā Movement Seasons and Cycles
Ā Movement Ecosystems
Ā Planning and Strategising
We wonāt just explore theories. We will also ask what we do with them ā personally and collectively. This course will help us to think afresh and to gain perspective. We will explore the formation of political identities – exploring how they serve us and how they hinder us. We will ask: How can we learn to strategise in a way that acknowledges the partial and provisional nature of our views and analysis? How can we develop a strategic approach that is responsive and in which on-going learning remains integral? How can we construct political identities that are genuinely empowering? And how can we develop campaigns, organisations, and movements with significant impact for systemic change?
Community Organising and Social Transformation Modules
Community organising is about building power from the ground up. It brings people together to take collective action on their shared concerns. Starting from local problems and everyday injustices, it has the potential to strengthen peopleās sense of agency, build solidarity, and foster leaderful communities. Weāll explore how politicisation can build from action on local concerns to the mobilising of new constituencies seeking radical structural transformation.
While activism and community organising often share goals of social transformation, they can often apply divergent practices, strategies and analysis.
Weāve found an increasing interest in community organising methods amongst many of the activist networks weāve been working with. They seek a more embedded approach and the tools and skills to mobilise and engage more diverse constituencies.
At the same time, weāve also been encountering many community organisers who feel their practice falls short of the level of politicisation and mobilisation they aim towards. Often the political āneutralityā the methods can involve leave community power tackling local issues, while failing to confront deeper structural injustice.
These modules will seek to bring community organising skills into a clear political framework, in a way that can enhance activist practice and extend the scope and ambition of community organising.
Community organising depends on key skills for reaching out beyond the circle of usual suspects. It offers methods for really listening for what matters and motivates people. It shares tools for connecting people and helping them organise to empower collective action. This training will share these key skills and the frameworks we can use for applying them.
Weāll combine community organising with political analysis, to bring fresh and powerful approaches to social change practice.
Venue
This course will be hosted at La Solana, a venue close to the Ulex Project centre that we are using to host rescheduled courses that were impacted by the Covid pandemic. Venue details to follow.
In theĀ solidarity economy:Ā
(See details of our approach to radical economics here)
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Location:
Sergio (all pronouns) was born in Romania and migrated to Germany in the early 2010s. In the past, he was a social worker with homeless people and a social consultant for Eastern European migrants for various organisations. Trained as a filmmaker, he spent two years making a documentary about the ācivic reawakeningā in Romania and the waves of protest it brought with it. In connection to this, Sergio is currently co-steering the development of an online open-source participative knowledge production platform on activism in Romania. Over the past nine years, Sergiu has offered his skills to various journalists, grassroots collectives and campaigns, mostly working within the labour rights, climate justice, international solidarity and anti-authoritarian movements in Germany and Romania. Nonetheless, his biggest focus since 2020 has been his work as an organiser with the anarcho-syndicalist Free Workers Union, where he focuses mostly on organising Romanian migrant workers on construction sites, in factories and in the agricultural field.
new stories: different worlds
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Knowledge, skills and perspectives to challenge oppression and create spaces of solidarity.
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Tools for effective and sustainable activism
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Navigating the complex terrain of migrant and migrant-solidarity organising
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an introduction to a holistic and transformative approach to activist training and facilitation
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Go to the people, learn from them. Live with them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have ā Lao Tzu
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Building facilitation capacity through participatory practices.
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a space to think critically, to ask challenging and transformative questions, and find deeper inspiration and understanding to empower social change.
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building and strengthening regenerative praxis for BIPOC organisers.
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Ulex: del LlatĆ, (argelaga en catalĆ ) nom:
1. Arbust espinós de fulla perenne i floració, amb gran capacitat de regeneració i resistĆØncia. Les seves pues s’obren en entrar en contacte amb el foc i torna a brollar dels tocones carbonitzats. Planta successional que creix bĆ© en condicions difĆcils. Millora la fertilitat del sòl mitjanƧant la fixació de nitrogen, preparant el terreny per a una renovada biodiversitat.
2. Una opció tradicional per a encendre focs. Crema amb intensitat i lluentor.
3. Un projecte en xarxa que aporta nutrició i fertilitat als moviments socials europeus a través de la formació