Build political consciousness of staff and partners
With a critical lense to the inner culture of NGOs participants realized that staff culture and political conscience is critical for understanding the workings of social movements. Staffs are always politically clear or have no political framing on what and why struggles are waged or why these movements exist. This results in staff not willing to assist or take the risks when the movements are crucial points in their struggles. This also leads to staff undermining movements because of a lack of understanding. There were different suggestions of forming political schooling of staff that includes social movements - this could also be to update ActionAids HRBA foundational framework.
Okay Machisa talks about how he works with building a political culture in his organisation meticulously involving all staff - from the cleaner to the director - in the politics of their work:
Jessica from ActionAid Brazil tells about the vast experience she and ActionAid has working with and along side social movements. Firstly, she admits, its important that we have the rights staff that understands movement logics and deep insight into how ActionAid on a practical level can support.
A larger discussion was centered around how we connect the local issues to the broader political agenda on rights. Few examples were given of situations where ActionAid was working on the issue of women's rights but the targeted women was worried about what they could do to put food on the table. So the question becomes of how we devise a way to connect the issues of hunger and poverty and the struggles of these to not only Human Rights but to the broader politics of political economy. Many historical examples of how this is done was shared, among these how the Black Panthers organized soup kitchens in the communities and how they used this space to build consciousness.
Read more about the principle of focusing on basic needs as a way of organising here: Beautifulrising.org - Principle: Focus on basic needs
Okay Machisa talks about how he works with building a political culture in his organisation meticulously involving all staff - from the cleaner to the director - in the politics of their work:
Jessica from ActionAid Brazil tells about the vast experience she and ActionAid has working with and along side social movements. Firstly, she admits, its important that we have the rights staff that understands movement logics and deep insight into how ActionAid on a practical level can support.
A larger discussion was centered around how we connect the local issues to the broader political agenda on rights. Few examples were given of situations where ActionAid was working on the issue of women's rights but the targeted women was worried about what they could do to put food on the table. So the question becomes of how we devise a way to connect the issues of hunger and poverty and the struggles of these to not only Human Rights but to the broader politics of political economy. Many historical examples of how this is done was shared, among these how the Black Panthers organized soup kitchens in the communities and how they used this space to build consciousness.
Read more about the principle of focusing on basic needs as a way of organising here: Beautifulrising.org - Principle: Focus on basic needs
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