Chapter 4 Strong as a Forest

Call to Action

The following Call to Action can easily be applied to a classroom research or community organizing project. This lesson can inspire your next social justice project or inspire some of your students to start taking proactive steps to benefit their school and community.

This section, we saw how historical struggle and community resistance were represented and expressed in different art forms such as murals, poetry and dance. These are all possible forms of collective action. Collection action can also result in a wide rippling effect transforming it into a social movement.

The Legacy book talks about many groups and initiatives that started as collective action initiatives addressing an important need or issue: Bear Clan, The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, The REDress Project, Migrante Alberta, and even the Paint the Rails Mural Project.

There are social movements from the past decade that have also had significant impact and started from collective action. For example: Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, #Me Too Movement.

Objective(s):

Research types of collective actions and learn their stories, challenges and impacts.
Start designing personal collective action plans.

Research:

Look into any form of resistance, movement or organization that has happened in Alberta. Find the story of how it began:

- How was this group/movement/project formed? What is the story?
- What was the purpose of the collective action?
- What forms and ways did they use to reach out to people, to resist, or to support?
- What were the short and long-term impacts of this collective action?
- In your opinion, were there any short-comings of this movement/project that can be improved? Why or why not?

Strategize:

Can you think of a form of collection action you can do to support a cause in your community?

- - Find a cause, group, or organization you wish to support.
    - Why this cause? Why is it important to you?
  - How do you wish to support this cause? What form will this take? (spreading awareness via art or education such as rapping, creating murals, protesting, social media, raising funds, through sports such as marathons, etc.)
    - Why did you wish to support in this way?
  - How would you get others involved in this? Where could you start?

Apply:

If this cause inspires you, try it out! Be the initial ripple or contribute to an already growing ripple of change. Ask your teacher if you can do this as a social justice project!

** Remember change starts with one person taking a leap of faith and a leap of action!

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