How to Mobilise Young Feminists for Climate Activism

The DEAR project “ClimAct/SPARK” developed an interactive guide and workshop programme to help young people make sense of their political desires and demands, and inspire action with an eco-feminist lens. The guide provides tips and strategies for climate justice activism and advocacy to influence decision-makers. The programme includes activities to help young people identify the approach that best suits them, based on self-discovery, security concerns, personal values, relations to the world and identity. A key premise is that gender and other identities shape how, especially young people, understand and experience climate crises. 

The guide for young activists provides concrete advice on how to assess risks for women´s rights, checking up on partners and how to build partnerships with feminist and other organisations. It guides participants to assess monitoring and evaluation plans, as well as budgets. The toolkit also includes useful sources, with links to books, podcasts, potential partner organisations, and petition platforms.

The workshop manual consists of three workshops, which all include theory, interactive questions, exercises, individual thinking, group work, knowledge and tools for daily life. They can be held separately or as a programme.  

• The first workshop addresses past activism, as well as intersectionality, to guide today´s activism. 
• The second workshop focuses on how to avoid disinformation, staying up to date with facts and evidence-based activism, as well as identifying and connecting with organisations and grassroots movements. 
• The third one is about “Starting Activism”, putting knowledge into practice, finding fellow activists and linking issues. It dives into understanding decision makers and processes to influence them, and how to concretely plan an event.

Regeneration is a key point addressed in both the workshop manual and activist guide (see p. 16). The guide stresses that most activists will face a loss of energy at some point - and that this is not failure. Rather, it “means you worked hard and your body tells you to take a break.” The guide calls upon activists to take a break to recharge, as “a radical act of self-love.” It warns people to listen to their bodies and mental health. It points out that not every battle can be won - and that we need to take care of ourselves - in order to take care of our earth and communities:

“There is a lot to fight for and we can’t conquer every battle at once. We need to take care of three things; our earth, our own body, and our communities. Regeneration is renewal or restoration of a body, bodily part, or biological system (such as a forest) after injury or as a normal process. What is meant by regeneration as practice is the healing, reconnecting to, or discovery of yourself. In order to keep going…” 

It describes recharging and breaks as “reset buttons” - “with the additional knowledge already gained.” Especially in these times of polarisation and online hate, regeneration and self-care are of utmost importance. 

At the public launch of the toolkit, Jada Kennedy, environmentalist and intersectional activist, self-identifying with overlapping social categories in terms of ethnic background, gender, socioeconomic status and sexual orientation, presented the Climate Justice toolkit. It introduced key climate justice terms and showed how the guide is accessible to all, catering to beginner activists with a “youth-friendly” and inclusive language. Providing very clear, concrete action points and next steps are important inclusions. Those addressed safety and security, as well as class, social environment and financial constraints. Jada highlighted the importance of “regeneration” and mental health to avoid activism burn-outs. A lot of mental strength and resilience is required in the face of possibly negative public, media and/or government responses to climate actions. Jada concluded on a hopeful note: “activism should be fun!”

For more information, including Train the Trainers workshops, please contact SPARK partner WECF (Women Engage for a Common Future), who produced the toolkit: 

chantal.vandenbossche@wecf.org

www.wecf.org/how-to-mobilise-young-feminists-for-climate-justice/