Popular Education and Direct Action

Nonviolent direct action is often misunderstood and just as often criticized. You hear it called ineffective, un-American, or illegal. That the effectiveness of direct action can still be debated strains credulity.

Actions can empower a generation, catapult an issue onto the international stage, and force political change. Yet, actions can also be poorly executed or harmful to your group and goals. This handout is here to help you design a strategic action.

What is an affinity group? An affinity group is a small group of people who come together to prepare for and take action. The group is organised in a non-hierarchical and autonomous way, uses consensus to make decisions and is focused on direct action.

An affinity group is a small group of people who come together to prepare for and take direct action. Affinity groups are organised in a non­hierarchical and autonomous way, there are no leaders and everyone has an equal voice and responsibility.

"Under an iron-fist rule, the use of training was a strategic predecessor to action."

I organised my first action in my quiet hometown. A group of us marched downtown. We sang songs. We chanted. We arrived at city hall. I hadn’t thought through what it would look like to confront our mayor. So we showed up and gave impromptu messages. We triumphantly returned home, having delivered our message.

Before you is a wealth of knowledge about the planning, conduct, and evaluation of strategic nonviolent conflict. This curriculum guide will be a valuable companion to new and experienced activists, as well as to others who wish to learn about this subject.

Climate change is happening already and affecting life all over the planet. We need to do as much as we can to stop it getting any worse, but we also need to be prepared as communities to deal with the effects of what’s coming as the changes get more severe; we wont be able to rely on governments when resources become scarce.

As the staggering forces of greed push consumerism and the wholesale
destruction of the Earth to unheard of levels, people across the planet
are fighting back. Time is indeed running out, and what else can be done
but build the bonds of friendship, fly a flag of resistance, and fling the
nearest wrench into the grinding gears of capitalism?

Just Transition is a framework for a fair shift to an economy that is ecologically sustainable, equitable and just for all its members. After centuries of global plunder, the profit-driven, growth-dependent, industrial economy is severely undermining the life support systems of the planet.

In 2007, the members of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) formed a committee to investigate how to add new dimensions to SRLP’s membership structure. We aimed to intentionally create more points of entry for community members whose ongoing experiences of state violence, poverty, ableism, racism, and transphobia produced obstacles for them to consistently participate in community organizations.

Direct action means getting on with sorting something out yourself,
rather than asking someone else to fix it for you. There's no better way to
take back control of your own life or to make change in the wider world.

War Resisters’ International (WRI) produced this Handbook, drawing on
the experiences of groups in many countries and different generations
of activists.

The Twentieth Century was the most violent century in recorded history.

Cada día, en los barrios de nuestro país, miles de organizaciones sociales trabajan incansablemente para mejorar la calidad de vida en sus comunidades, para compartir un plato de comida o una copa de leche, para generar nuevas oportunidades para los pibes y pibas, para ocupar los lugares que el Estado deja vacante o exigirle su actuación en la resolución de los problemas sociales.

The “Spectrum of Allies” tool is used for understanding Sun Tzu’s directives regarding “Know the Terrain” and “Know your Opponent.” The “Spectrum of Allies” provides a critical opportunity to define the stakeholders in an issue, and, used alongside the “Tactical Map,” better guides organizations in the effective selection of targets and tactics.

La fuerza de cualquier organización está en la construcción colectiva, la cual se relaciona con múltiples factores, a partir de una realidad determinada, concreta.

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief was founded to amplify and support community’s abilities to meet their own needs during and after disasters
through a d.i.y. ethic rooted in solidarity. To get a pulse on community
aspirations and challenges, to build deeper relationships with the
ever-growing network, and to share insights and lessons learned from past iterations of grassroots d.i.y. humanitarian aid projects, we engaged in a 30 city training tour in Spring 2018.

Direct actions, protests, and acts of civil disobedience are powerful tools for change. Participating in these actions may also put you at risk of arrest and/or mistreatment by police and in jail. When participating in direct actions, transgender people should understand their rights and take necessary precautions before accepting the risk of arrest.

The PMA methodology is not the property of any single organization, person, or group. Social Movements throughout history and around the world have used assemblies to make decisions. Movements, particularly in the Global South - Africa, Asia, and Latin America - have used assemblies to advance the practice of people power, selfdetermination, and governance.

By themselves, rulers cannot collect taxes, enforce repressive laws and regulations, keep trains running on time, prepare national budgets, direct traffic, manage ports, print money, repair roads, train the police and army, issue postage stamps or even milk a cow.

There are times when you'll be preparing a one-off action, perhaps as your contribution to someone else's campaign, or as a stand alone event in itself.

Objectives: Help campaigners consider the social and political context within which they are developing strategy

Purpose of power mapping and analysis process - To assist the campaign team: - Consider all players of relevance to its campaign and identify key players to target during the campaign

Propagate, Pollinate, Practice: Curriculum Tools for a Just Transition was
primarily assembled to assist people that have attended a Movement
Generation Justice & Ecology Strategy Retreat.

SOUL workshops and training tools are designed to be accessible and participatory, adaptable for a range of movement education contexts. Classic SOUL curriculum manuals are available to order now and new volumes are in the works!

Put simply, scouting is the process of acquiring information needed for an action to be successful. It is the gathering of site-specific information that enables the action coordinator to evaluate a potential direct action.

Goal or purpose: To understand who our allies and opponents are. To learn that tactics need to be planned in relation to
how much they do or don’t attract key allies and move people
towards being active allies.

The real situation: What needs changing in the community?