Organising legal trials for social change

Watch the News report from outside of court
A few reflections from the Climate9 trial

Everyday we witness corporations getting away with profits at the expense of people's health and livelihoods across the world; from sweatshop factories to oil spills, the list is long. Take climate change for example, everyday we hear in the news that 'if we don't act now it will be too late'. The world's top climate scientists state that airports cannot expand and coal fired power stations cannot be built if we are ever to meet the CO2 reduction targets necessary to preserve our future.

Today carbon heavy industries can pollute relentlessly with barely a legal challenge and when ordinary citizens challenge this, they are criminalised. If climate change is indeed the main concern of our courts and government, then this logic must be challenged and the question must be asked, 'who are the real criminals?' If we are to stop runaway climate change (and other atrocities) we need to support the people taking the necessary action and expose those working to protect a system which protects profit over the planet.

So many people in history have challenged the legal system for the greater common good. At the time many are seen as wrong and then fifty years down the line as heroines (Mandela, Malcolm X, the Suffragettes and more). I am eternally grateful for all these people and movements commitment t justice against adversity. For inspiration on how ordinary people can challenge the state for environmental and social justice, have a look at a few of these. This workshop is for those wanting to challenge unjust laws and policies and raise the public debate both in and out the courtroom

Here's a few suggestions;

Ten steps to building a trial.

1.Witnesses – Round up a vast mix of witnesses to speak from different angles (which will help build public unexpected alliances of support)
2.Keep track of your lawyers and the legal defence - make sure they are in constant consultation with you
3.Precedents – Find out about similar trials that have gone before and speak to the organisers if possible for advice
4.Generate a defence committee to support the co-defendants on paper and in the media.
5.Public campaign – public campaigns come in all shapes and sizes, it can be big, targeted, modest, spectacular, inspirational, innovative or reusing well-known methods. It is important to enjoy it whatever you do!
6.Organise events – speakers, public meetings, skill share events, workshops about why your pro actively challenging the legal system.
7.Burst the net - Set up blogs/ social networking sites/ website
8.Build support in and around the court- support in and around the courtroom is an important part of the spectacle
9.Press – Use press to build momentum.
10.Remember that the verdict is only one win in fighting for justice; awareness raising and inspiring others to take the necessary action throughout the trial process is a win in itself.

Intercultural Organising

Communicating across cultures and peoples does not necessarily come naturally. If we interacted more in organising for social justice and in our daily lives, will this create more empathy and reduce distrust between people? Many grassroots organisations highlight 'diversity' as crucial within their organising yet have difficulty in building movements across-cultures. In a world of hyper-mobility where the make-up of place is becoming more diverse every day, a new and different type of 'contract' is needed to influence how movements, based on genuine solidarity across cultures, can develop. The threat of societal breakdown due to increasing fascism and everyday prejudice is too strong not to go down this route.

This workshop is primarily a practical resource designed to strengthen the confidence, competence and commitment of people as they engage with one another across cultures (click here for more info). The workshop will engage in organising interculturally regarding relationships between people, systems and power and how we understand society to shape, support and limit intercultural communities. This workshop is of particular interest to anyone who works in formal or non-formal, settings with groups involved in community development, community education, adult education and development education. This will be of particular interest to those who organise around an issue or community involving a significant intercultural dimension.

Photo: Kristan Buus

Training for transformation 'creative facilitation' techniques

The past few months I have been training in and facilitating 'creative facilitation' workshops and movements. This combines discovery, learning and action at the personal, interpersonal and wider Society dimensions of life. A basic belief underlying the training is that community development and working for change needs to address these three aspects of life.

Creative facilitation embodies skills from 'transformative education' and facilitates people's personal journey in relation to the wider environment, strengthening facilitators understandings of themselves and their approach. Creative facilitation further encapsulates principles of popular education, interpersonal skills, listening skills, dealing with conflict, leadership skills, critical community psychology and community self-reliance. This approach helps a facilitator and understand the group they work with, engage in the fundamentals of participatory practice, gain a grasp on a wide range of techniques and tactics and have an enhanced ability to creatively respond to the demands and challenges of personal- political facilitation techniques which help build strong groups and movements for social change. By motivating training through helping groups find the root causes of problems, it is ideal for adult education, social workers, community organisers, spiritual activists, trade unions, and all those concerned with creating social justice.

On the workshop we attended to four areas: theory, skills, practice/experience and the understanding of the self (your approach, passions and motivations). Each of these elements and the interplay between them is essential to good facilitation.

Multi-Racial Organising for Environmental Justice

Ever feel like the only people you see in the public who care about the environment are white and middle-class? This is a workshop space to collectively challenge that myth and discusses why these voices attain priority and share stories about grassroots environmental and anti-racism organizing.


Goals of the Environmental Justice Multi-Racial Organising Workshop

To highlight the inspiring tradition of resistance to environmental racism [] (the disproportionate impact of climate and environmental injustice on Black and indigenous communities) in recent and current history in the UK.

To highlight the geographical areas where Black communities are affected by, and resisting against, the social and environmental impacts of industry.

To provide basic information about UK anti-racism organizations working in the movement to challenge all aspects of white domination and state repression, in order to facilitate networking with solidarity activists around the UK who want to support this movement.

To facilitate the efforts of organisers and educators who want to learn more about grass roots racial justice organizing in the UK, with the purpose of strengthening their solidarity activities.

To suggest some perspectives and tools for anti-racist solidarity organizers (especially for white activists) wanting to work in solidarity with grassroots racial justice organizations, and build an intercultural and multiracial movement in areas and other struggles they are involved in.

Militant Research Methods

Currently being facilitated in communities facingthe impacts of multiple deprivation across the UK due to budget cuts and government welfare reforms.

Are you living and learning on your own or with people to get to the bottom of injustice, oppression or resistance? 'Militant research' , by definition, means 'getting to the root of', and recognises that any research and organising involving relations of power is 'inevitably political'. Research is a political process in many ways. Who researches and how; whose experience is researched and how that is named or categorised; what discourses gain currency and hold power; what forms of inquiry and writing are favoured by 'mainstream' power-holders and much more are political issues.

This workshop provides insight into how we can research and organise in a manner which confronts structural injustice with confrontation, militancy, honesty and compassion. It highlights that no matter how much society denies that we aren't political beings in a highly-politicised world, everyone of course has natural bias, preconceptions and ideas. Militant research techniques are seen as a way to engage in 'deep' participatory approaches to social justice whilst being comfortable in our understanding as politically charged beings (by default of being alive). It further provides a set of tools that relate to existing movements and groups for radical change by adding research components where you can take a direct role in producing knowledge and strategies that resonate with initiatives which tackle the root causes of injustice.

Environmental racism

From New Orleans to Sub Saharan African to Newham by London City Airport, Black communities often bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change and environmental problems first and worst. As climate change hits home, workshops connecting race and environmental justice [] are happening across the UK and through the international network Climate Justice Action in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit

We also know that it is the West and predominantly white executives in organisations like the World Bank, The International Monetary Fund and the finance industry who have invested in and perpetuated environmental problems.

Environmental racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of colour. Environmental justice is the movement's response to environmental racism. Particularly in the States, and increasingly in the UK, people speak about the racial implications of environmental issues. This workshop will bring together theories, concepts, techniques and people affected by environmental racism to build a movement to tackle this interconnected problem.

Environmental Justice

Talking Environmental Justice

From The Gathering Under the Flightpath by Glasgow airport to the Environmental Justice Photo Project across communities on the frontline of climate change, poverty and pollution across the UK - environmental issues are being seen less as an abstract concern to an issue of justice.

Environmental injustice is a broad term that applies to all sorts of problems and situations faced by many people. Environmental justice means that everyone should have access to a safe, healthy environment and to environmental resources. This can mean things often considered “environmental”, such as green spaces and clean air, but also other things such as healthy food and warm and secure housing.  All environmental justice struggles are also about social justice. People with more wealth and power are better able to prevent environmental problems in their area, or to move elsewhere.

Part of fighting environmental injustice is therefore addressing the social injustices that mean that some groups are better able to protect themselves than others. In the US, for example, Black communities are rising against the disproportionate placement of polluting industries in their neighbourhoods. This workshop will support communities in developing an understanding of the environmental injustice situation they are in and working out what to do about it. Root causes of environmental injustices include institutionalized racism; the co-modification of land, water, energy and air; unresponsive, unaccountable government policies and regulation and lack of resources and power in affected communities.

Photo credit: Harmit Kambo

Popular Education

Popular education is a process which aims to empower people who are marginalized socially and politically to take control of their own learning and to effect social change. From the excellent training collective Trapese and the bubbling So We Stand movement in the UK to Cantera in Nicaragua, pop.ed is used as a movement building tool for radical change - from Clydebank by Glasgow airport to Southall fighting a gas site I have been helping to facilitate pop.ed workshops to strive for environmental justice.

'Breaking through the culture of silence' and 'breaking down the barriers of blame and scapegoating' popular eduction is a problem-posing education which encourages people to think for themselves and question the values and attitudes of the rich and powerful who exploit and try to brainwash them and then create possible solutions. Problem-posing offers all subject matter as historical products to be questioned rather than as central bank wisdom to be accepted – you are not filling empty minds with official or unofficial knowledge but posing knowledge in any form as a problem for mutual inquiry. This workshop highlights popular education methods in organising workshops, events and actions to build confidence, competence and commitment within and between individuals, groups, organisations and communities. It will build strong relationships with other people to support each other to produce knowledge, as part of sustained concerted actions based on a shared understanding of the need for intense political social change.

'The curriculum comes out of the concrete experience and material interests of people in communities of resistance and struggle. It is focused primarily on group as distinct from individual learning and development. It assumes a direct connection between education and social change' International Popular Education Network, 2004

'And as to the causes of social change, I look at it in this way- ideas are a sort of parliament, but there's a commonwealth outside, and good deal of commonwealth is working at change without knowledge what the parliament is doing'. George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

Anti-oppression organising

Relevant to all the organising I have been doing recently.....

'Anti-oppression frameworks' are a structure which movements for social change often embed in their organising which genuinely and actively work towards shifting internal power structures to embody the society people and movements strive for. Simultaneously with addressing 'oppression' comes addressing 'privilege'. For example some groups and projects may claim to be 'movement building' yet be predominantly young, white, middle class and able bodied and when if someone isn’t one of these they are assimilated and assumed to be anyway. Campaigning and organising language, ways of organising, use of abstract thought, ways of debating and arguing, accessibility of venues, need of time and money and many more issues all contribute to the exclusivity and elitism of a movement.

What is needed is a framework that generates strength and resilience in individuals and movements to build diverse empowering movements and contributes to an analysis of ways of how to have proper solidarity and support of/with other already organising groups from other backgrounds rather than trying to work out how to welcome them into one specific movement.

Different social groups have unequal access to power and privilege. Even stereotypes are not equal - consider the assumptions society holds of young white working class men (e.g. aggressive, anti-social, prone to criminal behaviour). While all individuals are capable of prejudice, abuse, violence and intolerance, only privileged groups have the power to enforce their prejudice at the institutional and cultural level. Community organising methods without relating the issues to people’s daily lives when compared to more imaginative methods we could be so proud of, often further exploits already oppressed people(s).

This is about eradicating methods which contribute nothing to our imaginations. Without community consultation or an outlet for people to get involved through their means of communication there is no community buy-in. This leads to the community feeling alienated and frustrated with yet more outsiders coming to tell the locals that they are doing things wrong and should do things in a new/different way. This is an example of privilege.

Anti-oppression is everyone's responsibility and for everyone to take responsibility in confronting social injustice. The focus is on understanding how systems of oppression operate, who benefits, why and how to transform them.

The anti-oppression organising workshop will address the key areas of the framework:
1.Actively working to acknowledge and shift power towards inclusiveness, accessibility, equity and social justice.
2.Ensuring that anti-oppression is embedded in everything that you do by examining attitudes and actions through the lens of access, equity and social justice.
3.Being conscious and active in the process of learning and recognizing that the process as well as the product is important.
4.Creating a space where people are safe, but can also be challenged.

It's important to remember that anti-oppression is a learning process and a journey of reflection, challenge and effective action. Youth workers and movements for change can benefit from routine anti-oppression training techniques that sharpens their knowledge and skills in analysing and understanding everyday situations.

Urban Ecopsychology - the psychological benefits of understanding humans relationship to the natural world

Globally more people today live in cities than in the countryside. Ever wondered how you may benefit from access to green space in an urban society? Wondered what problems arise in an urban environment from being disconnected from green space and the natural world? Wondered how access to green space may benefit society at large? Few can deny the mentally and emotionally therapeutic benefits of a stroll in the park, or of an adventure to woodland or even of natural light in the bedroom at home. Indeed, research finds that office workers with a good view out a window enjoy their job more and report better life satisfaction and better health. And even a bit of green space near homes can cut the health gap between rich and poor .

Many advocates for social and environmental well-being advocate that humans have an innate affinity for the natural world (biophilia) and even a hard-wired, physical need to connect with nature, that effects how we think, feel and act. Furthermore, environmental psychologists believe that ecological destruction stems from a sense of disconnection with the Earth and are thus concerned with trends of consumption and rapid development of natural resources. This workshop, where I am currently facilitating in London, will engage in issues of urban 'Eco-psychology'; the relationship between people and nature, the connection between planetary and personal well being and discusses how access to green space can, and should be, not just for those who can afford it but for everyone, and the planet to benefit.

Documenting State Repression, Technology, Social Justice, and the Environment

This month, we managed to expose the levels of infiltration our local police force are willing to take, just armed with a little spycam strapped inside the waistcoat.

So how can we use technology for the greater common good? Whilst the advance of technology promotes the promise of a better world, that promise has often been compromised or undermined in how we make use of such advances. Certain technological developments have contributed to environmental and social problems on a scale arguably never seen before. Technology, however, has also been used to tackle such issues as climate change and social injustice. This forum will share and explore some practical examples being used in the UK today, from techniques to monitor police infiltration, noise monitoring devices to participatory video and community mapping projects.

Community Transformation and Empowerment Workshop

Transformation,
“The state of being transformed. A marked change, as in appearance or character, usually for the better" *

Empowerment,
“A multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives"*1

How can effective dialogue dispel feelings of anxiety concerning injustice? Can community programmes be transformative and empowering?

This is a workshop in local community transformation, this carried out with communities living under the shadow of expanding airports throughout the UK. A great deal of work on social movements and campaigns concerns organised, large-scale, protest movements that appear, if only momentarily, to pose a threat to the state. There are a host of mutually reinforcing reasons why this shared understanding of relevance should prevail. A 'macro' approach can emphasise the role of scientific authority in guiding social movements as well as the influence of political parties. For others, it promises the merit of examining precisely those moments that promise large-scale, structural change at the level of the state.
What is missing from this perspective is the fact that most marginalised classes throughout history have rarely been afforded the luxury of archived, open and organised political activity. This workshop provides an opportunity to work consciously at a personal and emotional level to investigate how empowerment processes can occur in economically, socially and environmentally marginalised, or with a population significantly below the national poverty-line, communities can influence wider political engagement strategies.

"The most political decision you make is where you direct people's eyes. What you show people day in and day out is political and the most politically indoctrinating thing you can do to a human being is to show us every day that there can be no change" (Will Wenders: in Shukaitis:2007).

* Strenga & Brown
*1 Florin & Wandersman

Direct Action

Plane Stupid Direct Action

Direct Action workshops springing up all over, in preparation for a Summer of action

Direct Action simply means understanding the betrayal of 'representative democracy', taking action/decision making into our own hands and not being suffocated by an external  'authority'. Direct action isn’t just an action or intervening in the mechanisms of injustice, it’s a way of organising, of understanding and being in this world. We need direct ways of regaining control of our lives and an ethic of direct action can be a part of this.

Whether you are inspired by struggles for solidarity, multicultural resistance against racism to fights for environmental equality in poor and richer communities, direct action is about educating ourselves and building a movement relating global and local issues that mean something to our daily realities. Peoples Action. In this workshop you will gain gain hands-on direct action tactical skills and strategy in building safe and fully resourced actions to tackle the root causes of issues of social and environmental importance as well as creative and media techniques to capture the popular imagination.

Action Research, Cooperative and Collaborative Inquiry Groups

Put simply, action research is “learning by doing” - a group of people identify a problem, do something to resolve it, see how successful their efforts were, and if not satisfied, try again. While this is the essence of the approach, there are other key attributes of action research that differentiate it from common problem-solving activities that we all engage in every day. Primary is its focus on turning the people involved into researchers, too - people learn best, and more willingly apply what they have learned, when they do it themselves.  It also has a social dimension - the research takes place in real-world situations, and aims to solve real problems. Finally, the initiating researcher, unlike in other disciplines, makes no attempt to remain objective, but openly acknowledges their bias to the other participants [link to militant research].

In the form of informal gatherings with other people involved in a similar field of work and organising, co-operative inquiry groups also known as collaborative inquiry groups. These are simply an effective way of working with other people who have similar concerns and interests to yourself and change ourselves and society for the greater common good and to understand our world. The cycle of understanding gathers knowledge in four areas of knowledge, from the scientific world and knowledge generated from what we do on a daily basis, living in the larger world and when we engage in new practices. "Conscientization" (conscience - action) is a critical concept in relation to action-research, referring to a critical positioning (action) in face of a reality understood from a continuous process of reflection and questioning (conscience).

This workshop will build an understanding of setting up and carrying out effective and empowering cooperative inquiry groups in practice and the theories behind them. Cooperative inquiry groups are a popular education method in themselves as it provides a structure whereby everyone, not just academies and institutions, can generate expertise and take action on the issues important to them and their communities. The major idea of a cooperative inquiry, is to organise ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ people, where people are treated as passive subjects rather than as active agents [delete last sentence?].

Co-operative inquiry thus embraces what is called action research, where people work together to build a cycle of 'action' and 'reflection' in becoming more effective in understanding tools and techniques for positive change.

Environmental Action as Self Defence

In all the action trainings to stop runaway climate change I have been involved in, the atmosphere has changed. Taking action is no longer an exercise in finger-waggling and moral righteousness that this is simply 'the right thing to do' but something much more powerful and meaningful.

Being Homo Sapiens or “knowing humans” humans have a biological instinct deeply rooted to the survival mechanism of the organism which keeps us rationally interested in our self-interest. In the broadest sense of the word 'environmental action' is defending human life and human communities, rather than any one individual. As a species ourselves we are completely intertwined with the wider biological system we live on 'Earth'. If we were to appreciate our unbreakable bonds to other humans and the entire natural world, we'd be more likely to act in "self defence" when engaging in action for environmental justice.For more depth see Arne Naess.

For many, issues such as extinction, ocean floor trawling, and desertification,may appear too abstract to motivate people to step up when there are seemingly more day-to-day problems at hand. But if we were to look upon all living things as part—along with ourselves—of one "collective soul" we'd recognize the need to protect our entire eco-system. If we choke the lungs of the Planet we will only choke ourselves. If we strangle the Planet’s life system (of clean air, water and natural resources), we, as one of the recipients of these life systems, will only serve to strangle ourselves.

Relating to the elementary concerns of climate change, this workshop contributes to an understanding of how we can move from a small, personal sense of self to a broader ecological sense of self. Developing a mutually beneficial relationship with the wider natural environment can be significant in transforming our desires and giving strength in striving for justice. Creating an understanding of environmental action as self defence will strengthen individual and collective efforts in challenging oppression as well as feed into legislative processes which increasingly recognise the relationship between environmental justice and self defence.