UAEM National Conference CAMPUS ACTIVISM TRAINING
description
Transcript of UAEM National Conference CAMPUS ACTIVISM TRAINING
UAEM National ConferenceCAMPUS ACTIVISM
TRAININGNovember 14-15, 2009
Sarah Frazer, Americans for Informed Democracy
Objective of workshop
Develop a strategic framework for successful direct action campaigns.
Familiarize ourselves with the range of tactics at our disposal, when, why and how to use them.
Four Ways to Solve Social Problems
Direct Service
Advocacy
-Marshall Ganz, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Mobilization
Organizing
1. Direct Service
Improves the lives of people by directly linking them to resources that stabilize daily life. Direct service alleviates immediate crises by but often leaves the root causes of problems untouched.
2. AdvocacyInterprets institutional processes for the poor and disadvantaged. It does not address nor change the basic power relationships between people and the institutions that control their lives.
3. Mobilization
Engages people in short-term, direct action to create immediate results
4. OrganizingIs people working together to get things done. It serves as a tool, a weapon, and a means of getting people to learn, to think, to act and to reflect about theirs lives in a new way. By doing so, the poor and disadvantaged areable to reclaim their strengths, roots and heritage.
3 Principles of Direct Action Organizing
Win concrete improvements in people’s lives
Give people a sense of their own power
Alter the relations of power
-Midwest Academy
Strategic Campaign Planning
Campaign:– Strategic series of coordinated and
escalating activities designed to achieve a specific goal
Strategy:– A plan to organize your Folks and your
Friends to force the Man to give you the Goods.
-Ruckus Society
6 Stages of a CampaignInvestigate/gather informationEducateIncrease motivation and personal commitment for the struggle aheadNegotiate with targetDirect actionCreate new relationship with opponent that reflects new power reality
-Ruckus Society, derived from MLK’s essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
What is Direct Action?
People organizing ourselves to make the changes we want to see in the world
3 Arguments Against Direct Action
It’s ineffective
It’s un-American
It’s illegal
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”
Good NVDA Can:Be fun!Alert folks to a problem, issue or idea.Assert or defend a human or ecological right. Directly stop bad things from happening.Amplify our voices, magnify our visibility.Create & envision solutions.Inspire, recruit and energize.Lead us to the achievement of our goals.
Types of NVDAProtest– Registering your dissent
Non-cooperation– Withdrawing something from the system
Intervention– Directly intervening in the functioning of the system
Creative solutions– Developing alternative, community-based solutions
Points of Intervention
Point of productionPoint of destruction
Point of consumptionPoint of decision
Point of assumption
Point of Production
Point of Destruction
Point of Consumption
Point of Decision
Point of Assumption
Georgetown Living Wage Coalition
Hunger Strike
UVA Living Wage Campaign
Sit-in
MIT STAND Divestment Campaign
Die-in
MIT STAND Divestment Campaign
Demonstration
United Students Against Sweatshops
Banner drop
Let’s Talk Tactics
What other tactics have you seen, heard or or participated in that have successfully escalated or won a campaign?
Break Out Session!
Move quickly to your letter15-20 minutes to complete scenarioConsider your tactics carefullyAppoint someone to report back
6 Stages of a CampaignInvestigate/gather informationEducateIncrease motivation and personal commitment for the struggle aheadNegotiate with targetDirect actionCreate new relationship with opponent that reflects new power reality
-Ruckus Society, derived from MLK’s essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
The Tactic Star
Action Development
Develop a Sense of TimingBe CreativeKISS Rule
What Kind of Power We Got?
End of formal slavery Outlawed child labor/The right to go to schoolVoting rights for women, youth (over 18), African Americans The 40 hour work week (and weekends)Civil RightsMaternity leaveThe rights of people with disabilities to hold jobs and access businesses
People POWER
“Power concedes nothing without demand [...] The limits of tyranny are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
– Frederick Douglass, American abolitionist and women’s suffragist
“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr., Americans civil rights leader
“Walk the street with us into history. Get off the sidewalk.”– Dolores Huerta, United Farm Workers of America co-founder and organizer
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.”
– Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian Archbishop and liberation theologist
If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.
Food for Thought
Super Hero Shout Out
Sarah Frazer, Americans for Informed Democracy– [email protected]– www.aidemocracy.org
US Social Forum– June 22-26, 2010, Detroit, MI– www.ussf2010.org
Workshop Evaluation
Rate the workshop1-5 (5 = highest; 1 = lowest)What you liked or befitted from the most?What you liked the least and could stand to be improved?