July 7th to 14th – at sites across London
Applications due Monday, June 11th

If you are aged 16 – 30 and see injustice, pollution, racism, poverty in your community and want support in how to effectively tackle these issues, or know someone who is, then read on! ‘So We Stand’ Summer School is an intensive 1-week introduction to community organizing and social change.

The School exists to harness our anger at economic, environmental, racial and social oppression. The School exists to catalyse self-organisation + self-mobilisation into building strength in our communities to defend and confront oppression over the coming years. The School is chiefly dedicated to building the skills of young women, young people of colour, working class people, and queer people and those with different mental and physical abilities as the next generation of leaders in the social justice movement. Limited places welcome to people all across the UK.

The School aspires to turn marginalisation and isolation into politically powerful support systems, ideas for actions and long term strategic organising. We will be challenged with new ways of thinking, provocative speakers, inspiring mentors and fascinating guests with a deep understanding of engaging with the head, heart and hand. Youth affected by economic inequality understand oppression because it is daily life – you don’t need to read it in a textbook. The School exists to harness our anger at oppression and turn our anger into political organising against it. The School exists to encourage self-determination and self-mobilisation into building positive communities who can defend and confront oppression over the coming years. We’re looking for advice or involvement in any of those areas. Join us for a week of experiences and ideas, and help us change things.

SWS provides a transformative framework to develop your organising skills, methods for empowerment and political education. SWS Summer School is organised around 3 pillars:

1. COMMUNITY ORGANISING + EMPOWERMENT LEARNING – to deepen the context of power and resistance in the UK. The educational tools will strengthen knowledge for our community based projects work within working class communities and communities of colour, fighting alongside people for their rights along with examples for global fights for hands on, effective community power. We shall look into how to turn marginalisation and isolation into politically powerful support systems, ideas for actions and long term strategic visions. Participants will be challenged with new ways of thinking, provocative speakers, inspiring mentors and fascinating guests from a range of communities facing injustice. Together, we will develop ideas for hands-on, effective, community projects.

2. EMPOWERMENT ORGANISING MENTORS –  to build long-term relationships with those who participate, through mentoring with activist elders, peer support, more frequent workshops and through participation in events within the local community, at youth centres and social nights to deepen the practice of critical community organising. The mentor programme will continue relationship building between front-line activists and supporters to deepen transformative possibilities for greater positive change and strategic visioning for movement building today.

3. SKILLS TRAINING – to learn the tools to build power and excitement in your community to tackle injustice. The trainings will be a building block to deepen within your organising internships. You will develop skills such as popular education, storytelling, building connections across cultures, radical education, direct action, monitoring police brutality, reclaiming space, spoken word and creating conscious music, anti-oppression organising, anti-racist and environmental justice training.

SWS Summer School is ideally a week-long full-time commitment. You’ll spend at least 25 hours in the week in our political education + skills training sessions. SWS intends to provide practical support you may need and expenses will be covered. Everyone involved in the School – organisers, volunteers, attendees, speakers and facilitators –  are active participants and will build the curriculum to sort all our needs.

In the meantime we need mass involvement to enable the School to reach its full power. If you have a little or a lot of time and want to gain experience in organising empowering and action orientated education programmes for our people on the frontline of injustice then please simply email sowestand@gmail.com . If you have further questions about SWS Summer School into social justice and community organising, please get in contact ASAP.

So We Stand – stand shoulder to shoulder with communities on the front-lines of social, racial and environmental injustice.