tCA news - july 2008

what's on top

This enews we celebrate NAIDOC Week with a focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activism. Pru, tCA's crew member based in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), recently facilitated a planning session with the Intervention Rollback Working Group. She shares insights on Indigenous Rights activism from people who are committed to this work.

We also celebrate the 25th anniversary of the success of the inspiring Franklin River campaign. Warm greetings to all veterans of the campaign!

July's Liberation Book Club discussion explores class. Scroll down to find out more and to read the feature article.

supporting climate action

As you read this we're probably setting up or running the facilitator's hothouse at the Camp for Climate Action in Newcastle. We'll be providing workshops on facilitation and activist education, as well as mentoring and debriefing for folks running their own workshops. We're also pleased to have supported the Camp's evaluation, as part of our advocacy evaluation project.

You will have received an invitation to complete our survey about the use of online tools by the climate movement, as part of our ongoing action research project. Thanks to everyone who has completed the survey - if you haven't yet, we'd still love to hear from you!

In August we'll be running a workshop for climate campaigners in Perth, focused on increasing collaboration and building the movement. The workshop will include a reportback from Climate Camp.

Contact Holly - for details of the WA Climate Movement Building workshop.

great online resources

	Online Campaigning: Insights from ANTaR - Informative interview with Priscilla Brice-Weller, online campaigner for Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation. Includes tips on building relationships and support for campaigns through a strategic approach to social networking platforms.
	Funding advocacy for social change: clarifying the rules for grantmakers (296k PDF) - Changemakers Australia and Leslie Falkiner-Rose (2007) note that many grantmakers shy away from funding advocacy for fear of losing their charitable tax status and advise that it’s important to distinguish between organisations and projects with a political purpose, which definitely cannot be funded, and those undertaking advocacy activities to support a charitable purpose, which are permissible in many circumstances.
	OpenAustralia - OpenAustralia.org is a non-partisan website run by a group of volunteers which aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their representatives in Parliament. The site currently posts Federal House of Representatives hansard, with the Senate to follow soon.

upcoming learning opportunities

Our online calendar has details of workshops, conferences and other learning opportunities between now and the end of the year. Let us know about events coming up in your neck of the woods.

articles

		Indigenous Rights activism Interested in learning about past campaigns? Check out these links. Warning: some of these sites include images of indigenous people now deceased.
		Diversity of tactics Last month's enews contained a link to on online paper on the topic of diversity of tactics. Some readers responded that the 'Unconventional Tactics' article presented one side of a complex argument...
		Documentary and film for social change What makes documentaries and films that are focused on creating change different from those produced for entertainment or awards? They are not committed to their own self expression, but to facilitating the discourse of communities joined around social change. There is much more of an audience...
		Liberation Book Club: Classism Class is a concept rarely discussed directly in Australian public debate – one of the great myths is that Australia is a classless society. Very few...

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