Activist Education and Resources
Activist Education is the ongoing skill-sharing and educating of our peers with content that is relevant & useful for collectives, campaigns or continuing along the path of creating social change.
We’ve been working with our friends and activist educators at The Change Agency for the past few years. Our practices in activist education have been largely influenced by work they’ve done with us. They also have heaps of awesome resources on their website.
The resources on this page share radical learning tools for educating activists and activist educators alike. We encourage the sharing of ideas, reflections and constructive criticism about tools we use. Feel free to send us a workshop or resource you’ve created/found, or any comments about these resources to info@asen.org.au
Our projects include designing and facilitating programs at our annual ASEN summer activist training camp; supporting new educators; running skillshares across the continent; the ASEN activist education handbook (see chapters below); and organising, designing and facilitating strategic planning for community climate change groups, state skillshares and other events.
If you’re interested in ASEN running a workshop for your collective/group or want advice on running one yourself we’d love to hear from you! Email us at info@asen.org.au
What is a Workshop?
Workshops are a fantastic way to support learning and skill-sharing among activists. You don’t need to be an ‘expert’ in the chosen topic to run an effective workshop. Participatory workshops draw on participants own knowledge created through their daily life. Such educational models, using names such as ‘Popular’, ‘Adult’, or ‘Radical’ education, draw on a set of alternative education principles.
There is no perfect, standard or ‘correct’ workshop outline. A workshop structure and purpose reflects the creativity of the facilitators, the needs and aspirations of participants and the context in which it’s being experienced. Be creative!
The ASEN Workshop Package
Here you’ll find a workshop outlines and related resources on a range of topics. Check out the “how to use” guide for these workshop resources.
Our work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License. You are welcome to copy, distribute, adapt and transmit the work, under the following conditions: you attribute the work, you may not use this work for commercial purposes, and you share alike. To view a copy of this license, visit here. For further information, such as contact information for facilitators to run these workshops, please email info@asen.org.au
- ASEN Training Manual
- Workshop: Building and Maintaining Collectives
- Workshop: Direct Action
- Workshop: Facilitation
- Workshop: Media and Messaging
- Workshop: Theories of Change
- Workshop: Anti-Oppression (also, check out the USA Grassroots Policy Project)
- Workshop: Campaign Strategy
Workshop Preparation Resources
Resources & Links
- What is Collective Organising?
- Empowering Group Members
- Participant Agreements
- Resources for Organisers
- The ASEN wiki has heaps of extra information about ASEN, how we work, and content for workshops.
- CounterACT
- Training for Change – USA-based, with heaps of awesome resources on anti-oppression, nonviolent change, strategy, team building, etc.
- RANT Collective – mainly focused on nonviolent action and strategy
Training Materials: Youth Climate Leaders Training
In 2008, ASEN hosted a two-day youth climate leaders training at UTS. We designed a new and innovative training program and materials drawing on our experience, existing research on communicating climate change, and new research on the specific needs of university students. For further information contact info@asen.org.au and please credit the resources if you use them!
- Download the full two-day workshop program.
- Workbook: The Climate Leadership Journey used by participants in the workshop, accompanies the workshop outline.
- Workshop: Australian Greenhouse Pollution a fantastic visual and interactive exercise that breaks down where our greenhouse pollution comes from.
- Workshop: Imagining Displacement for Climate Refugees
- Workshop: Resources for Campaign Strategy adapted from Bill Moyer’s ‘The Practical Strategist‘
- Workshop: Starting a Youth Climate Group
- Workshop: Negotiating 101
- Workshop: Planning and Promoting Events
- Workshop: Children of the Future – Storytelling exercise. A creative, reflective and beautiful exercise, developed from the work of Joanna Macy, where we explore this journey we are on, the journey of this great turning, the journey of change, of preventing runaway climate change.
- A Just Transition article by Geoff Evans
- ASEN and the Institute for Sustainable Future ISF surveyed attitudes of NSW university students to climate change and interests / barriers to climate change action. Download the report here and read a news story here.
Further Reading about Popular Education
- Beyond Just Education
- Cooperative Learning Theory
- Freirian Facilitators
- Max Min Learning
- Philosophy of Education
- Check out this documentary and performance project on popular education, “I Want to Do This All Day: Redefining Learning and Reinventing Education.” In the spring of 2006 these cool young folks set out to investigate the living history of the “radical learning” movement, and compiled their findings in this 2hr 30min audio piece. The documentary uses interviews from 23 different learning spaces to illuminate the grassroots movement of people and communities taking power over their own education and creating learning environments based on freedom, cooperation and social change. To listen, go here