Background:
During our Spring Activist Imagination and the Politics of Hope class, we each developed a weekly project called a “create!” Some of our projects took the form of facilitated group activities designed to increase skills, broaden perspective, and deepen unity. Some projects were case studies of direct actions taken by UW communities. As a final project, our class will be compiling these works together into an online activist resource for communities both inside and outside of the UW campus. Because analyzing, categorizing, and “road-testing” these activities – most of which have only lived inside our brains and now on paper – will take more time than we have in the final 3 weeks of the quarter, some of us would like to form a focus group to do this work together in the fall.
Goals:
Our primary goal is to enhance and expand this activist resource by analyzing the current entries and adding more, both through our own work and through partnering with off-campus activist communities. We can foresee opportunities to rework national organizing models for our local communities, and bring skill-building tools into our own activism. Questions for discussion will include: What types of skills can build stronger local activist communities? What kinds of activities, information, and resources can help to build these skills? What skills are we lacking in our own activist work? How can we support each other in growing into more powerful contributors to social justice?
Who:
Though a handful of students in our Activist Imagination class have expressed interest, the focus group will be open to any UW student interested in capacity-building in activist communities, with a limit of 10 students.