Building cultures of care

This page was created to support activists in building towards cultures of care in their groups. Activist burnout continues to be a major problem in movement spaces, leading to increased internal conflict, decreased retention and ineffective efforts, among other issues. This page is a work in progress that will be added to over time. The information included comes from existing organizer databases and resources by movement thinkers, plus thoughts from participants in our care 101 workshop. This page also includes thoughts shared during our self and community care learning circle, and navigating turnover in student groups learning circle. Included are _______________

Knowledge from the HUB's care 101 workshop

Participants in our care 101 workshop were asked "Have you ever left, or thought about leaving, the climate movement for a period of time? Why?" They shared the following...

Disconnection from other systems of oppression	Other struggles take priority (e.g. job loss, family emergencies, caretaking with limited support and capacity, etc). Other injustice takes priority and isn't addressed through climate involvement (e.g. police violence, poverty etc). Climate movement can feel depoliticized/disconnected from other social struggles
Poor or lack of conflict engagement	Lack of conflict resolution processes/engagement
Anti-oppressive structures/practices not in place	More privileged perspectives holding more/all space Whiteness of climate spaces Lack of COVID precautions and/or care for meeting accessibility needs
Not enough rest/joy in organizing	A never-ending sense of urgency = limited experiences of rest/care/free time Burnout Feeling disconnected socially from team members
Feelings of hopelessness and ineffectiveness	Lack of clarity on what focus/tactics to take Hopelessness
Lack of appreciation	Imposter syndrome/efforts not acknowledged or appreciated

Slowing down to make space for reflection, checking in and meeting needs creates space that can be used to surface, and help address, many of the challenges listed above.

Knowledge from learning circles

Navigating turnover learning circle

When asked about incorporating more social and fun activities to build relationships, students who participated in learning circle suggested…

Social events	As someone who started a group during the pandemic, in my experience it was important to designate someone or a group to organizing social events. When people stopped coming to online social events, we included social time in the online meetings. People were demotivated from the online time, so we had to include it in the meetings Have a different theme for each meeting (hat, pijamas...) Use interactive online tools to share thoughts
Check ins	Extended time for check-ins and check-outs with fun questions like “what plant do you feel like?”
Thoughtful of time	Not exceeding meeting times so as not to exhaust people
Holding space for emotions	Connect through discussing emotions like shared frustrations and joys
Holding 'easy' actions	Holding actions without the pressure of going bigger, larger. Hold small actions and focus on the relationships that actions deepen. For example, an easy activity to organize is a banner drop with picture taking. The point is to gather people.
Escalation of relationship building tactics	Escalation of relationship building tactics: start by planning things like an email campaign or phone zap (no relationship building), then something like an open letter campaign, distributed and signed (opportunity to build relationships), and then organize a demonstration.

If you have any suggested revisions or additional resources to share related to the above content, please email them to kenzie@lehub.ca.

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