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There is life after the elections! Activists and people interested in social change need to continue the fight and move into creating smart strategy. We also need to do some reflection and relaxing after the intense push many groups put into the elections. In this training report, we describe what we did for this workshop and some of the results. It was led on the Saturday following the elections (November 6th). It was led by Daniel Hunter (lead facilitator) with Sue Edwards and George Lakey. This report is written in a way that follows the design of the workshop we led. That way, if you want to support your group in post-election life, you can grab tools and ideas to assist you groups. Enjoy and feel free to take tools and ideas! The Goals of the Workshop: - reflect on the election and its impact your work;
- recuperation from the intense lead up; and
- building strategy for the future and generating new ideas about what’s next.
Some Assumptions: - Many activists have been engaged deeply in the elections. Part of the process of healing is regrounding in the larger work they do — housing, labor, environment, etc. One way we design for this is to support people to group together based on those interest area and reflect collectively about how did the elections affect our work.
- Emotions are important. People need to grieve, rage, and allow their feelings to show up. And, as importantly, those feelings need to be validated. Therefore, our design is to maximize the range of feelings and give validation to all of them.
- One important aspect of strategy is empathy building. Some critical analyses of the elections have lacked empathy — instead targeting particular segments of society (Southerners, Midwesterners, working class people, evangelical Christians). Rather than engage in one-dimensional bashing, strategy involves making folks three-dimensional and understanding their motivations. So we also design for empathy building in the workshop.
The Design: | Tools (Tools with a "**" are available on TFC’s website: http://www.TrainingForChange.org) | | Design Notes | | Diversity Welcome (**) A tool to warm-up a group and invite the diversity of the group to show up. Facilitator welcomes different groups (men, women, transgendered folks; heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian & gay, queer folks; people of all political stripes, etc). | | In the beginning of a workshop, people always wonder: "Who else is here? Is this a safe space for me?" This tool helps to build that safety by acknowledging the diversity. In this diversity welcome, it was especially important to welcome the diversity of feelings (tired, angry, frustrated, despairing, confused, foggy, shutdown). | | Goals/Agenda Review | | Great time to remind participants of the modesty of the goals. It’s not to become completely healed, but to continue to move along the way. | | Mingle: Something that you think might be getting overlooked in the elections… (**) The mingle invites one-on-one interactions to discuss. | | This tool also helps build a safe space — or container — through one-on-one interactions. The mingle is one of our favorites for warming up a room. Plus, it allows folks to begin sharing their own perspectives — activists are often anxious to share "what’s not being noticed!" | | Stand Up If… Facilitator models: "Stand up if…" and completes the sentence with something true about themselves. S/he then stands up and everyone else for whom that is true. Then everyone returns to sitting and waits for anyone in the group to stand up next. In this workshop, the facilitator modeled with "Stand up if you’ve been foggy since you found out Kerry conceded." (He couldn’t remember how to set up the exercise — so a great time for facilitator transparency.) | | Again, container-building. And this time, it allows participants to identify their own feeling states and get recognition that they’re not alone! The number one lesson for people in moments of stress: your methods of coping (shutting-down, being quiet, being in rage, etc) are all normal. (See handout.) | | Story-sharing in fours: "Where were you when Kerry conceded?" Folks of the older generation have the line, "Where were you when JFK got shot?" Now we have "Where were you when Kerry conceded?" Invite folks to share the story — did they stay up the night before? Did they think Bush had already won? | | More normalizing and container-building. Allows for people to reflect on the election but not get stuck into analysis (which tends not to help people release emotion). It is personal and invites personal self-disclosure. | | In the groups of four, then share: What have been your feelings since then? What states have your gone through? Debrief with an emphasis on normalizing the different responses. Write up the various feeling states people have been in (everything from sadness and shock, to blame and judgement). Then share the handout. | | Normalize, normalize, normalize. | | BREAK | | | | Work-based groups Tasks Get into work-based groups (labor, housing, media, etc.) as the group decides. In those groups complete the following three tasks: - What are 5 themes from the election that relate to your work? (Harvested the top 2.)
- What are some gaps related to your work? (We believe one major gap was the lack of vision all-around — by progressives and Democratics alike. Therefore:)
- What are some elements of vision your group has to offer?
| | This design is to help activists reground and re-center — get focused again on the elections but in the context of their larger work. In this way, we want to encourage people to not get stuck in "what to do in 4 more years thinking" — there’s plenty to do right now! | | Self-care: group stretch or massage in a circle (depending on the group) | | Activists doing self-care? It can happen! Here’s a small piece of it, which sends people into lunch with it on their minds. | | LUNCH | | During lunch we encouraged people to take care of themselves. We brought comic books (Boondocks, Jon Stewart’s new book), had good food, and made an altar. We also encouraged folks playing frisbee . | | Skits in groups of four/five: What is the completely worst possible scenario for the election that didn’t happen? | | Crying and raging are good for emotional release. So is laughing! Lead this skit in a light way to help the group laugh a lot and have fun! | | Force Field Analysis (**) So things are not the worst they could be. Nor are they the best. So what are the main forces that are pushing against each other? What forces are pushing for things to be better? What forces are pushing for things to get worse (from our perspective)? (Handout on how to lead the Force Field Analysis.) | | This is a strategic tool to help with analysis. Since the election has been so tunnel vision for many activists, this helps activists get the "big picture." |  (click for a larger picture of the force field analysis) | | BREAK | | | | Empathy-building: other points of view We wrote a handout (see third handout) to give activists some points of view outside of mainstream activism: white working class, rural Midwestern, African-American Baptist. We passed out the handout and then debriefed with people’s personal reactions. | | We highlighted these points of view since we have seen them blamed by activists (other groups have also been blamed, but these we had access to people from that perspective for an immediate post-election reaction). | | Parallel Lines (**) Given that there are margins in every group, what are some of the margins that folks in the room might want to reach out to? (It might be one of the three groups mentioned in the handout, or others.) Role-play on how to reach out to a new group (each line identifies a margin to reach out to and has the person play that role). | | What’s a workshop without skill-building? This role-play is designed to assist participants to identify 1) what external behaviors assist them to come across curious and respectful; and 2) what internally helps them do that. | | Announcements and Closing | | |
To contact the author, Daniel Hunter, e-mail Training for Change at peacelearn@igc.org. For more information on strategy and training of trainer workshops TFC offers: www.TrainingForChange.org |
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