"Non-Violent Action Workshop", organized by Nonviolent Education and Research Association and Initiative for Freedom of Expression started on December. Every third Sunday of each month, we come together to brainstorm and to learn more about our rights, with the participation of different activists from NGOs, scholars and lawyers.
The workshop series is to take place in Kadıköy kargART. The first workshop took place with the participation of 30 people. On our first meeeting, we talked about the concept of nonviolence, non-violent action and campaign practices with Hilal Demir and Birsen Atakan's (Nonviolent Education and Research Association) presentations and exercises.
At the end of our first meeting, the participants spoke about their expectations from the workshop series. Here are some of the future points of discussion and proposals elaborated by the participants:
- Activists' presentations about their experiences in the field
- Further information on the theoretical framework and to obtain a reading list on the subject.
- Evaluating the necessary steps for rendering the collective actions/platforms accessible and sustainable
- Discussing how to act together outside the workshops as well
- Increasing the accessibility of NGO's
- Forming a network and staying in touch for actions in the future
- Spreading love and aiming to do so, based on the principle that love is contagious as much as hate is
- Approaching nonviolent struggle as an individual matter as well as social
- Closely examing the cases of nonviolent actions
- Discussing what kind of nonviolent attitudes we can demonstrate facing a social environment of heightened pressure and hate
- Evaluating how we can share methods of struggling with fear in our individual lives
- Going over the examples of actions organized in Turkey and in other parts of the world
- Learning and discussing methods of facing violence
Next workshop will be on January 22, 15:00, at Kadıköy kargART. In our next meeting we will be discussing how we can cope with fear in times of social conflict and trauma and what our rights are under the state of emergency conditions.