Participants learn basic organising skills/problem solving. How to have convincing conversations.
Before you start
Come up with multiple examples of people in power, problems and tactics to make up a strategy. E.g headteacher, exclusion policy, petition to go round students and teachers could go together (the tactics are likely to be largely interchangeable)
What to do:
Start by helping the group think of examples of people in power, problem, and tactic to resolve it.
Share an example: headteacher, exclusion policy, petition to go round students and teachers could go together (the tactics are likely to be largely interchangeable)
Then ask them to come up with other examples of where they have seen change happen and which people in power were involved and what tactics they used.
The group will need to decide something that they want to change (either all together or in smaller groups). The thing to change should be something where you can point to the individual who’s causing it. (So, closing down prisons is too big an issue – but your school exclusion policy is something you can change. You can identify the person who’s made that policy).
Get into groups of 2-4 and plan your strategy, writing on flipchart paper, get the group to note:
- Identify a problem
- Who’s putting it there?
- How will you change their mind/pressure them to do what we want?
- What tactics will you use?
- How might you escalate your tactics if you don’t get the response you want?
- What additional things will you build in the process? (the skills you learn, the relationships you build, the contacts you gain, the experiences you have)
Give the group some time to plan their actions. Come back together as a group and ask:
- How did it make you feel planning this?
- How do you think you would feel while carrying out the plan?
- What if the person in power told you off?
- What if you didn’t manage to change things?
Next, give the group time to add elements of care into the plan. Ask them to go back to their flipchart and add in some things they can do to support each other during this process and if you don’t win. Hopefully participants will contribute things along the lines of ‘even if you don’t win, you will gain new skills which will help the next strategy.’ If not, guide them towards this.
Come back together and allow each group time to present their plans. What changes does everyone want to make? Finish the session with a discussion:
- What do you think you could gain from this process, whether you win or not?
- Which plans are most realistic from the group?
- What can we do as a group to make change?
