Strategize, Plan, and Take Action

I ask youth what they want, what are some things that they see in their community, that they wish were different but don't know how to fix it, or don't know who to turn to. If they don't know, I give them suggestions to help them, and then develop programming that is of interest to them.

~ Bev Walker, Millbrook Family Healing Centre Truro, Nova Scotia

 

We attempted to get the girls involved in outside opportunities, build their confidence from feeling respected in a girl-centred space, and our eventual intention was to have them help co-facilitate after they had completed the program.

~ Joanne Cave, Ophelia’s Voice, Sherwood Park Alberta

 

 

 

What Is Action?

Action means doing something (or avoiding doing something) in order to have a positive effect on the social, political, economic or cultural environment that you live in. Action is also closely tied to the idea of being an activist – someone who works to make change happen. Taking action with your girls’ group can foster the development of leadership skills, self-esteem and community engagement. Girls learn about their world by changing it for the betterment of their lives, families and communities.

 

Why Take Action?

Action can be motivated by a wide range of political beliefs or orientations and take many different forms of expression. You might decide to take action based on situations, organizations, policies, laws or behaviours that you see in the world that you do not like. You may also take action in order to further a positive vision of the world that you want to see realized.

 

Here are just a few reasons why you might be motivated to take action:

 

• Make a change in your life, community, country or the world

• Raise awareness so that more people will take action

• Set a positive example for others

• Influence and effect public policy

• Create positive alternatives to problems or challenges you see in your community and in the world

• Encourage acting locally and thinking globally

 

Action and the Popular Education Spiral

Strategizing and planning for action follows the previous aspects of the spiral (starting from where participants are at, looking for patterns, and adding new information and theory), but this does not mean that you should only think about taking action at the end of the popular education spiral. Like all aspects of the spiral, the idea of social change and taking action should be infused in everything that you do.

 

At some stage in your session or program you will want to be very explicit about how to enact change. You can brainstorm and try out different ideas depending on the needs of the group. For example, if the issue of cliques comes up, think of how you can talk with girls about its negative effects and strategize together about what can be done.

 

The action phase of the process is very important. It offers hope, possibility, and engages girls in working together and building team skills as they enact change together. Taking action can also provide girls with an important opportunity to practise their self-expression and self-advocacy. This is an important part of confidence, self-assertiveness and advocacy building. Engaging in action with others is also important, since it can give girls the opportunity to share their learning and awareness with their peers and their community. Doing action with others also enables positive change on the broader community.

 

 

Here are some tips and suggestions that could help in the strategizing before you take action:

 

How to Strategize or Decide What Action to Takeⁱ

There are many ways to take action. What kind of action you decide to do will depend on the situation, your analysis of the situation and what you think will produce the greatest results, as well as who else is interested in becoming involved in taking action with you.

 

For example, if you see a lot of garbage on the street you may determine the problem is the trash (which is dirty or looks bad) or people’s behaviour (throwing trash on the street) or business practices (which create too much packaging). Each analysis calls for a different strategy or response: a neighbourhood cleanup, a public awareness campaign or writing letters to businesses that you feel over packaging. This is a very simple example, but hopefully shows how there are many ways to approach an issue.

 

Also, the same actions may not have the same impact or result each time you do it. A very important part of taking action is to think through the situations and analyse the possibilities ahead of time. Try not to just jump in and take action without being clear on what your purpose is.

 

 

To help you decide what actions are best suited to your vision, here are some questions to ask yourself about taking action:

 

• What are the objectives of your action? What do you want to see happen as a result of your action?

• What actions would suit meeting your objective best?

• How does your action fit into your longer-term vision of the change you would like to see?

• How will you communicate with your audience?

• What are the possible outcomes of your action (intended or unintended, good or bad)?

• How will you or your group make decisions about what to do next, before, during, and after the action?

• How will you evaluate the effectiveness of your action?

• Are there any possible negative consequences that might arise from your action? Are you prepared to deal with them?

• At what point will you decide to call it off?

 

 

How Can I Take Action?

Taking action can mean educating, awareness raising, creating positive alternatives or challenging injustices where you see them.

 

Here are a few examples of how you can take action with your girls group. Try brainstorming with the girls about what these actions involve and how they can use them for their own issues.

• Organize a workshop

• Arrange for an inspiring person to speak at your girls group and invite people to join, or you can decide to go big and fill a whole auditorium

• Encourage writing by making ‘zines with the girls’ stories and poetry; create pamphlets, websites or blogs

• Introduce art by creating a mural or collage, painting, dance, songs, theatre, photo exhibitions

• Talk to a friend

• Put on an event. Have the girls identify an issue that is important to them and their communities and organize an event to bring everyone together around this issue to raise awareness, share, and plan for the future

• Speak out and take responsibility for the aspects of your identity where you have privilege – most of us are both marginalized and privileged in some way

• Encourage political campaigning and support

• Fundraise

• Challenge oppression where you see it, openly and proudly express the aspects of your identity that are marginalized

• Conduct research to inform others and to inform policies

• Campaign and organize around an issue in order to raise awareness about it: write letters to those causing the problem or to those who can offer support and make your cause known in the general public by offering information (like tabling at an event or on the street)

• Try lobbying and influencing others in power (like legislators) who are in favour of a certain policy or practice by seeking interviews, writing letters or joining a letter-writing campaign and bringing external pressureⁱⁱ

• Promote civil disobedience characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent meansⁱⁱⁱ as a way of seeking law reforms

• Boycott by patronizing and encouraging others to patronize businesses whose practices you prefer (they are kind to the environment or treat their employees fairly)

• Take part in media activism by:

- Culture Jamming

A form of political communication in response to the saturation of advertising we face and commercial isolation of public life. Culture jamming makes a satire of media messages such as brand logos and political messages. By playing with and altering these messages, cultural jammers hope to make consumers aware of the assumptions that go into such messages.^iv

- Internet Activism

e-Activsm or cyber-activism uses different electronic techniques to educate, spread awareness, and promote advocacy to bring about social change such as email, the Web, and other new media^v

- Demonstrations or Rallies

March through the streets^vi or hold a meeting in a public place (a rally) to hear public speakers.^vii Both are ways for a group to express their feeling for or against something.

 

Why is Action Important?

 

Never doubt that a small committed group can change the world.

Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.

~ Margaret Mead

 

As Margaret Mead points out, we have the power to affect the circumstances of our life if we act. Change can take a long time to come about, but every little bit of action that is taken helps to create change. By taking action you are becoming a part of making history, and moving forward towards the elimination of violence and discrimination in all its different forms. If you are unhappy about the state of the world, don’t just complain: the best remedy is action. It has been shown that one of the best long-term antidotes to feelings of sadness or hopelessness about the state of the world is to work for social change.^viii

 

Action Profiles

 

At Girls Action we believe that taking action is an important way for girls to learn about the world: by changing it and making it better. Action can take on many forms. It can be personal, community-based or structural (government laws or organizational policies). Since we talk so much about action, we wanted to share some examples of the actions that girls and young women have taken within our network.

 

• Actions can be taken within girls’ groups to build girls’ capacity and raise awareness

• Actions can be taken outside the group to build community

• Girls and young women can self-organize as action

• Girls and young women can take action to influence structural change

 

Actions can take on one or more of these aspects. For example, girls can take action within the group and then present it to the wider community. This could then lead to collective action to change a law.

 

 

Capacity-Building Actions within Girls’ Groups

 

Here are some concrete examples of what we mean by action:

‘Zine making!
A favourite activity at Girls’ Club is ‘zine making. ‘Zines address themes which matter to the girls. In the past we have done ‘zines on themes such as self-esteem, friendships or healthy relationships. Girls then made copies and shared their creations with their peers.

 

Write poems, make collages, and create art!

Creative arts and creative writing on topics that affect girls is a great way to raise awareness, share talents, and be creative. It is easy to then share these art creations with the larger community.

Fundraise for a cause that affects us
The girls make bracelets to sell and donate the profits to the cause that is important to them.

 

Re-write song lyrics

Love the melody but hate the lyrics? Girls re-write song lyrics to deconstruct popular media, reclaim their own realities in music, and educate peers by sharing their songs.

 

Create your own song!

Girls write their own lyrics and use clapping, stomping, found objects or instruments to create their own song.

 

Community mural

The girls can paint an image that represents something they have learned or want to share from girls’ group. For example, they could paint a “tree of peace” on the walls of the school. The mural is to educate their peers on the acceptance of others and non-violence.

 

Letter-writing campaigns

Girls write letters to organizations, corporations or government officials on issues they would like to see action on. For example, writing letters to your MP asking her/him to create legislation to ban the use of toxic chemicals in beauty products.

 

Blogging

Blogs are special websites designed to share information, opinions, and discussions. Girls can participate in existing blogs (see www.kickaction.ca) or they can create their own.

 

Intergenerational night

Create an event for multiple generations of women to get together about an issue in their community. For example “Leaping Feats Creative Dance Works” in Whitehorse held an informal gathering with prospective girls’ club participants and local grandmothers to share stories about new beginnings. The event built bridges between different generations in order to work together towards violence prevention in their community. By networking with women in the community, they worked together to help make change that empowers young women to live without violence.

 

Ethical Fashion Show

In Victoria, B.C., Anti-DOTE organizes an annual “Unlabeled Fashion Show” where girls make their own brand of fashion through recycled materials and sew-it-yourself designs. This workshop aims to examine all aspects of fashion and explore its effects through a youth-engaged, feminist, and participatory lens. In addition, the workshop is designed for young girls and women to use fashion as a tool for exercising their political agency and resistance.

 

Body casting

The Green Goddesses girls’ group in Ottawa creates body casts. Using plaster and other materials the group creates body casts of the entire torso and arms, which are then “decorated” with messages about what their bodies mean to them, how they love and nurture them, and how they have been affected by media messages. These body casts are then displayed in an art gallery. The hope is that body casting supports girls in developing awareness and acceptance of body size and shape and offers an opportunity to show the world a different story about women and girls.

 

Food budgeting

Girlz Group from LEA Place plans a nutritious meal for a family of four while following Canada’s Food Guide and the families’ budget. The girls go to the grocery store armed with calculators and shopping lists. The groceries are then donated to the local food bank to be given to a family of four. This action helps the girls understand the impacts of poverty on families, meal planning, nutrition, budget living, and the cost associated with living in a rural area.

 

Community-Building Actions

 

Public film screening and discussion

Jodi Proctor from Whitehorse organizes an awareness raising event/fundraiser on the subject of women’s homelessness in the Yukon. Housing and having supportive programming for women is an important issue in Whitehorse, so Jodi invites different women to speak on the subject and female artists to perform. “I want to raise the profile of these issues in the community – get them more into the public eye. I have asked a women spokesperson, Charlotte Hrenchuk, to speak about certain stereotypes around homeless women, myth-busting if you will, and would love for people to leave with the knowledge that every women is vulnerable to this plight. It could happen to anyone.”

 

Celebration of cultures dinner

A girls’ group in Vancouver invites people to a dinner to celebrate their cultures by bringing food, games, dress, and songs. There were activities of First Nation art making and flag making from the countries of each participant. The objective was to have participants take the time to be proud of who they are, to explore, and to leave the event with more knowledge about cultures different from their own.

 

 

Young Women Self-Organizing as Action

 

Back Off: Re-appropriating our bodies
Back Off is an event organized by a group of young women from Concordia University and the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). They create a day to discuss various issues affecting women’s bodies. Some themes addressed are: overmedication of contraception, the toxicity of menstrual products, and the homogenising of representations of sexuality and women. The event is a day to reflect, resist, and take control. It includes a community fair, bilingual workshops, and panel of guest speakers.

 

 

Rock Camp for Girls Montreal

Carina Foran and Jennifer Duffin from Montreal, Quebec create a week long music camp where girls can take up space, take risks, learn new skills, and create their own kind of cultural production through music. Rock Camp for Girls Montreal fosters girls’ leadership and self-esteem building and offers a community of support to girls and young women interested in do-it-yourself music.

 

Teen Feminist Action Network

This network organizes conference calls, an email listserv, a message board and a blog that connects young feminists. The organization of the Network is participatory and planned by potential users. “Natalia and I both know that having a support network is invaluable and we want to create that experience, along with lots of resource-sharing and collaboration, for other girls and young women.”

 

Organize a Blogging Carnival

A blogging carnival is traditionally a week or so long and features posts by guest bloggers on one or a few specific themes. Curating a blogging carnival involves reaching out to a number of people, usually bloggers but also activists, students, your cousin – anyone who you think more people need to hear from.

 

The goal of a blogging carnival is generally the initiation of discussion, so it’s important to promote the carnival – by word of mouth, on Facebook, via email, etc. – and then make sure that people who are comfortable talking about the themes you pick are on-hand to moderate those conversations. Not only are the conversations that come out of blogging carnivals super-inspiring, they’re also really well documented! You can have a blogging carnival on your personal blog (starting a blog using Wordpress or Blogger is really straightforward) or you can organize one on a site like Girls Actions’ kickaction.ca.

 

 

 

Actions to Influence Structural Changes and Systems Change

 

United Nations

Ophelia’s Voice, in Sherwood Park, Alberta, takes action in partnership with the United Nations Association of Canada Healthy Children Healthy Communities Project. It investigates the social determinants of health of youth across Canada. In this project Ophelia’s Voice evaluates the Child Health Action Manual. To do this, a group of young women from Ophelia’s Voice participate in two national conference calls, facilitated by the United Nations Association of Canada; two evaluation sessions; and a meeting with their Municipal Government to present their recommendations on improving the social determinants of health for the youth of the Sherwood Park area. The girls want the local government and community to be informed about media influence, body image, racism, lack of access to education, poverty, peer pressure, employment, and access to recreation facilities as important determinants of health for youth in the area.

 

World Urban Youth Forum

After organizing with young women for a while, you might be able to attend something like the World Urban Forum to talk about youth engagement and girl-specific engagement.

 

Here is an excerpt from the World Urban Forum and Youth Declaration:

 

In the weekend preceding the World Urban Forum III over four hundred youth leaders, representing over forty countries, assembled in Vancouver to share our experiences with, and strategies for, urban development. Over three days, youth attended workshops, training sessions and had impassioned discussions about the issues plaguing our communities. From these discussions, an overarching theme emerged and held prominence: the most important challenge to overcome for youth today is to be engaged and involved in the decision-making process.

 

The Miss G Project

The Miss G Project for Equity in Education is a grassroots, young feminist organization working to combat all forms of oppression in and through education, including sexism, homophobia, racism, and classism. Dedicated to feminist anti-oppression politics with a strong focus on education, their mandate is to provide young people, particularly young women, with the opportunity, support, and resources necessary to analyze and influence issues that affect their lives and futures. This includes acting as a community resource and mounting political actions towards the ongoing improvement of publicly funded education to meet its own policy commitments to equity in education, respect for diversity, critical thinking, and the provision of a safe and secure environment. Their current objective is to get a Women’s and Gender Studies Course into the Ontario Secondary School Curriculum.