Nos organizamos para el cambio social

Finished 02 / 05 / 2018
Funded!
Received
€ 5.019
Minimum
€ 3.500
Optimum
€ 5.000
101 Co-financiers
  • Contributing € 10

    Name included in the handbook

    With a contribution of 10€ or more we will include your name in the acknowledgements of the handbook

    > 18 Co-financiers
  • Contributing € 20

    T-Shirt

    With a contribution of 20€ or more we will give you a T-Shirt with the logo of the campaign (postage included within the State of Spain)

    > 13 Co-financiers
  • Contributing € 40

    Printed book

    A printed special edition of the handbook (postage included within the State of Spain)

    > 46 Co-financiers
  • Contributing € 500

    Seminar "Organizing"

    From a contribution of 500€ on we offer a reduction of 50% on the fee for a weekend seminar on organizing, tailored towards your group(s). We suggest that several groups join forces and make a joint contribution if they want such a seminar. We can do the seminar in English, but travel expenses will need to be covered by the organisations.

    > 02 Co-financiers

About this project

Organizing for Social Change - collectively, strategically, creative and diverse

Needs Task Minimum Optimum
Website "nosorganizamos.net" and "organizing4change.net"
Development of a dynamic website with the content of the handbook (in Spanish) and links to related content.
€ 1.200
Graphic design (images and tables of the handbook)
Graphic design of the many images and tables included in the handbook, both, for print publication and for the website version.
€ 1.200
Management through La Transicionera
Management functions: communication, administration, accounting, etc.
€ 315
Typesetting/book layout
Layout of the Spanish language handbook for printing.
€ 1.000
Addtional administration via La Transicionera
Additional expenses related to the administration of the crowdfunding campaign and managing the printing of the book.
€ 260
Needs Infrastructure Minimum Optimum
Commission Goteo
Commission of 4% for Goteo.org for the minimum of 3500€
€ 140
Additional commission for Goteo
Additional commission for Goteo related to additional income (4%)
€ 60
Needs Material Minimum Optimum
Individual Recompensas: T-Shirts and books
Individual recompensas related to the minimum amount: - 23 books a 12€ (shipping included, from 40€ on) - 61 T-Shirts a 6€ (shipping included, from 20€ on)
€ 645
Additional individual recompensas
Additional individual recompensas for the second round: - books at 12€ each from 40€ on - T-Shirts at 6€ each from 20€ on
€ 180
Total € 3.500 € 5.000
Necessary
Supplemental

General information

In Spain exists a long history of social movements which since the last years of the Franco dictatorship have been the protagonists of important social and political changes. More recently, since the economic crisis since 2008, the movement of the indignados sprung up en 2011, which revitalized and promoted the idea of collective participation and that we have an important role to play within the political arena of the Spanish State. With this collective challenge interest in the practice of nonviolence has grown again, and with this became evident the need to develop new materials for nonviolent social movements. Only few materials exist in Spanish about this topic that can help new activists or collectives in their first steps of their activism for an ecological and social transition and for human rights.

We observe that many collectives that form part of social movements work in an often inefficient way and that many people leave activism again because of a lack of knowledge and/or experience on how to oganize.

In our practice we identified the lack of materials especially on the practice and on organizational design from a nonviolent perspective (and practice), and several nonviolence trainers in the Spanish State did confirm this. They use materials such as the Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns of War Resisters’ International (WRI), one of the few handbooks that do exist in Spanish language. However, one of the weaknesses of a handbook such as the WRI handbook is that it was written for a different audience and that many materials that are referenced (such as the Movement Action Plan) do not yet exist in Spanish language.

In Spanish language only exist some handbooks on specific aspects: the organization of meetings and assemblies, the use of social networks or the planning of a nonviolent action. There is a lack of handbooks with a broader perspective and that combine the knowledge and experience generated by social movements and ‘Community Organizing’, case studies and practical tools.

La Transicionera wants to respond to this need of a handbook with a broad perspective created above all for nonviolent social movements in the Spanish State (but also useful for Latin America).

The crowdfunding campaign has as its main objective to make the content of this handbook available in a accessible form via a dynamic website.

Acknowledgements 7

1. “We have to do something!” (introduction) 11

2. Social movement 17
• 2.1 Examples of successful social movements 25
◦ 2.1.1 The conscientious objection movement in the State of Spain 27
◦ 2.1.2 The HIV/AIDS activist movement in the USA 44
◦ 2.1.3 The anti nuclear energy movement in Germany 60
• 2.2 The Movement Action Plan (MAP) 77
◦ 2.2.1 Strategic points of departure 77
◦ 2.2.2 Eight phases of social movements 85
◦ 2.2.3 Four roles of activists 121
• 2.3 The five causal mechanisms of social change 127
• 2.4 Summary and consequences for our activism 134

3. “Organizing” 137
• 3.1 The 'concept' of organizing 137
• 3.2 Power 153
• 3.3 Social Empowerment 159
• 3.4 Summary: power and social empowerment 165

4. Empowering organisations: how do we organise for our activism? 167
• 4.1 Structures for our groups 168
• 4.2 The life of a group 175
• 4.3 Assemblies, meetings and decision making 178
• 4.4 Leadership and representation 192
• 4.5 Structures for movements 195
• 4.6 Internal conflicts 204

5. Empowered organisations: how do we plan to make use of our power? 213
5.1 The seven aspects of organizing 215
• The participants/activists 215
• The philosophy of the group 216
• Structure and process 217
• Problem and solution 217
• Social environments 218
• Communication 219
• Resources 219
5.2 The seven steps of organizing 220
• The beginning 220
• Analysis 223
• Objectives 228
• Strategies 233
• Planning of actions 238
• Action! 247
• Evaluation 251

Anex 1: Tools 253
• Tools for the beginning
• Tools for analysis
• Tools for developing objectives
• Tools for developing strategies
• Tools for planning activities and actions
• Tools for during an action
• Tools for evaluation

Anex 2: Resources and materials 301
• Resources and materials on the web (in Spanish) 301
• Bibliography 306

Main features and goals of the crowdfunding campaign

The website will have two main aims:

  • make available the content of the handbook under a Creative Commons licence, and to make available to anyone - a person or a collective - the content of the handbook as a PDF (and in other formats)
  • build a network, or networks of affinity, whose purpose would be to promote spaces and initiatives for the development of nonviolent organizing strategies.

In other words, to confront collectively the multidimensial crisis which at the very moment demands diverse responses.

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Why this is important

This handbook has been written as a consequence of two invitations, one openly expressed, the other one in form of a friendly challenge.

In April 2014, during the preparations for a direct action in Gran Canaria in which Andreas Speck participated, a pacifist activist from the island animated him to systematise their experiences and to write them in black on white to end the absence of materials about organizing and strategies for social movements in Spanish.

A little later, in June 2014, during an event in Boston Andreas met the Rev. James Lawson, one of the great strategists of the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. At that meeting they talked a long time about the impact of the peace movement, and for the Reverend, this was a big failure. And about the nonviolent direct actions that the movement was organizing in Europe, the Rev James Lawson asked "Andreas, you are basically doing 'actions of testimony', without real impact?" This splendid question did nothing more than confirm something that Andreas had felt before: that European nonviolence deploys with diligence 'actions of testimony' which permit to show a clear opposition, but which lack a strategy and a vision on how to develop our power for real social change. Andreas accepted the challenge.

With this handbook, we want to help to produce social change from the collective up and in a proactive way. We bet on the common good as a basis for our project. We are above all interested in reaching collectives and social movements. And in generating networks of affinity to build and plan responses to the pressures which the powers that are do exercise over us.

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Goals of the crowdfunding campaign

"It is clear there exist an urgent need to develop more activist educational material in Spanish, material that help nonviolent activists becoming more creative, strategic and effective. This is necessary for two reasons: 1) The lack of updated and easy accessible material in Spanish, and 2) the strong mobilizations we see in Spanish speaking areas of the world. This organizing manual will be a great step forward." 
Dr. Stellan Vinthagen, Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance

We start with the conviction that the protagonists of social changes are well organized people and communities that create the paradigm shift towards equality and social justice.
With the project of the organizing handbook ‘Nos organizamos para el cambio social’ we want above all offer a tool to empower active people and communities and promote organizing from the grassroots. Within this overall aim, we want to achieve (or contribute to) the following objectives:

  • Improve knowledge on the processes and successes of nonviolent social movements
  • Provide accessible tools for activists and collectives within nonviolent social movements
  • Increase efficiency and creativity of the collectives that together form nonviolent social movements
  • Improve the processes and internal structures of the collectives within and of the nonviolent social movements

The other objetive of this crowdfunding campaign is to obtain the financing to create and launch a website which will serve to support the handbook and materials derived from it, and to build an infrastructure which can serve for the network #nosorganizamos.

Team and experience

The team for this project is formed by Andreas Speck and Checho Ferrera Ledesma.

Andreas Speck has a long history in nonviolent social movement in Germany, Britain, Spain, and world-wide. Andreas co-organized an international study conference on ‘Nonviolence and Social Empowerment” in Puri, India, in February 2001 for War Resisters’ International1. From 2001 until 2012 Andreas worked in the office of War Resisters’ International (WRI) in London supporting nonviolent movements in countries such as Israel, South Korea, Turkey, Colombia, among others, above all on issues of tactics and strategies. Andreas facilitated workshops on nonviolent strategies in Germany, Georgia, Turkey, South Korea, and Spain, among other countries.
Andreas contributed to the Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns of said organization, especially chapters on Power and Nonviolence, the Planning of Campaigns, and Gender and Nonviolence. Andreas also contributed to a range of other WRI publications, such as A Conscientous Objectors’ Guide to the International Human Rights System, Conscientious Objection: A Practical Companion for Movements (London, 2015), among others.
Andreas was also active in the movement against nuclear energy in Germany and Britain, above all with a focus on nonviolent action. He now lives in Sevilla in Spain and is part of La Transicionera, and is active in the Red Antimilitarista y Noviolenta de Andalucía (R.A.N.A.). He continues to cooperate with WRI especially in the work to support social movement in Turkey in the context of the actual repression, and in relation to the situation in the Kurdish regions of the country. Andreas identies as genderqueer

Checho Ferrera Ledesma presently coordinates Marginalia, a project on Critical Cultura, narratives for resilience and providing workshops on Creative Writing.

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Social commitment

Sustainable Development Goals

  • Quality Education

    Obtaining a quality education is the foundation to improving people’s lives and sustainable development.

  • Reduced Inequalities

    To reduce inequalities, policies should be universal in principle, paying attention to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized populations.

  • Sustainable Cities and Communities

    There needs to be a future in which cities provide opportunities for all, with access to basic services, energy, housing, transportation and more.

  • Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

    Access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels.