The Graphics our Meg drew up to help us advertise the event!
On the weekend of Nov 10-12th 2023 we organised a residential training in the Forest of Dean, for young people working towards land and food justice. This all came about because the Land Workers Alliance (LWA) reached out to us asking if we'd want to put together an event focused on youth capacity/skills building. We had a really wonderful group of 30 participants who brought all sorts of different perspectives! Some of the young people were from FLAME (the youth branch of the LWA), but also lots involved in other movements/groups. Some were growers/ landworkers and others were pretty new to the land justice world!
All of this was possible thanks to the generous funding that we got from the LWA, which allowed us to rent a space, hire some really great people to facilitate and cook, and offer the whole thing completely free of charge (as well as support some participants with travel expenses)
We were hosted at the beautiful Wilderness Center, with stunning views from the house across to the River Severn. Although the training was focused on organising skills rather than land based skills, it was still great to be staying somewhere surrounded by beautiful trees and rescue chickens! We were kept very well fed by some of the lovely people from Cambridge Community Kitchen, who cooked up a feast for us the whole weekend - including a 3 course pumpkin meal on Friday evening!
The Sunrises and the Chickens really make the Wilderness centre
As the RYSE we facilitated the 'container' sessions - some welcoming and introductory sessions as well as a reflection to close the weekend. Then we brought in some great facilitators to offer workshops on a really wide range of topics! Summing up what they were all about would require many words, but hopefully you can get a taste from the titles...
History of La Via Campesina and the terms Agroecology, Right to Food and Food Sovereignty - Jyoti Fernandes (LWA Campaigns & Policy Coordinator)
Public speaking /advocacy for food and land justice activists - Jyoti Fernandes
Exploring Facilitation - Tigger
Theories of Change - Nils (XR co-founder, currently organising a PRALER COLLSAG in Bristol)
Glocalising Land Justice Discussion - Emily & Frankie from CALL (Community Action for Land Liberation) - another PRALER COLLSAG
Intro to Understanding Burnout - Ali from Resist & Renew
What is Community Organizing? Are we doing it already? + some tools! - Becky Ross
The workshops in full flow on Saturday
On Saturday evening we were very blessed to have Robin and Pearl from 3 Acres and a Cow come to perform a show just for us! It was a hilarious and also hard hitting telling of the history of land rights struggle in Britain from 1066, through folk songs and poetry. if you haven't come across 3 Acres and a Cow yet, check them out, they're playing shows across the country this spring!
On the final afternoon we had an open space, where we invited participants to offer discussion topics or skillshares to the group.This was really rich and a powerful example of how so much knowledge is held in a room of people and the beauty and power of creating spaces to share that with each other - it felt like we barely scratched the surface in 1.5hrs!
More sessions and a proud RYSE team with our Internationalist bunting!
It was a pretty packed weekend, and we hope it sowed some seeds of ideas and connections in everyone that was there - it definitely did for us!
Thank you to everyone that came, contributed their perspectives, ran workshops, helped carry tables, fed us, provided firewood, shared songs & poems, offered feedback and much more to make it all possible x
Thanks to everyone who came, we'll see you along the road!
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As always, buzz us any reflections on this through our email (theryse@riseup.net) or on the Insta - love and power family, onwards!