What's on top?
Right now, people working in essential services are putting their lives on the line to keep our communities safe and strong. People working in emergency services, health and welfare, people maintaining food supplies... I want to take a moment to express my gratitude and respect to them.
I'd like to also take a moment to appreciate and acknowledge the incredible efforts of campaigners and organisers who put their lives on the line for a just and equitable society. Many people working for social and environmental justice pay a high price. Their work - your work - to strive for social and environmental justice and uphold widely held values hasn't stopped because of this pandemic. On the contrary, social movements have responded to these extraordinary times with ever greater creativity and determination. Thank YOU for digging deep, for accessing and harnessing your passion for justice during these times!
It's been humbling to be swept along with this energy. Even as we've all come to terms with change, risk and trauma, I've witnessed such remarkable leadership and generosity of spirit. There's been an explosion of social movement training opportunities and campaigners have initiated innovative forms of protest and connection.
In this enews, we share just a few of the many resources that have been developed and shared to support community organisers and activists make effective use of online communication and campaigning platforms like Zoom, Slack, WhatsApp and Facebook. Resources to help us adapt to the times.
Our team needed to entirely rethink our work. The day the World Health Organisation declared the pandemic, we were leading the second day of a 7-day residential workshop. We quickly organised for participants to travel safely home. and began the work of re-designing our Community Organising Fellowship. How best to facilitate learning and sharing about community organising during a time of physical distancing? Seven weeks later, we've led five participatory workshop sessions via Zoom. Our cohort are working on practical learning tasks individually and in small teams, with fortnightly sessions on Zoom and ongoing dialogue via Slack. We'll make these tools work as well as we can, and look forward to the 'new normal' which - when the time is right - will allow us to resume face to face workshops.
Unfortunately, we also needed to cancel a series of campaign strategy and civil resistance workshops we had planned for late March and early April in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Our sincere apologies to everyone who had registered. We'll be sure to let you know when we're able to schedule these again.
Take care.
