Activist workshops inspire changemaking ideas in students

UWC Atlantic hosted a series of workshops in October, delivered by a trio of international community organisers and activists from Venezuela, India, Scotland and Canada. The three-part series was organised by Lighthouse, our on-campus entrepreneurial hub.

Natali Euale Montilla and UWC alumnus Ben Reid-Howells, co-founders of the Ikake Rising Collective, and Kumar Prashant, founder of the Centre of Resilience, worked with students in three connected areas:

Sharing stories of front-line communities organising to restore the Earth and to resist violent global systems like extractivism, colonialism and white supremacy;
Exploring tools and tactics for dismantling these systems in our life and community work;
Sharing ceremony, traditions, songs and wellbeing practices from our own pre-colonial roots, to maintain ourselves in this work for lasting systemic change.

The workshops were convened thanks to the support of a number of UWC Atlantic alumni, including Ben, who commented:

“We had a room full of young people naming the ways these systems show up in their lives and how to resist them; imagining how to apply scalable tactics of organising to their visions back home around climate justice and refugee rights; and acting out scenarios of how to defend their communities, the land and water from international mining companies. It was powerful to witness! If more UWC students are exposed to these analyses and skills, the movement will suddenly be much more potent.”

Lighthouse is looking for alumni to mentor student teams, hold workshops, and join the judge panel for the annual prize. If you would like to be involved this year, please do get in touch.