Working Together In Troubled Times as Organisers in Scotland (Past)
A chance for grass-root organisers and communities to gather in person and work through the challenges we face
Please Note: This event has now finished and can no longer be joined.
Who is Organising our event and Why?
This event is being organised by Doughnut Economics Scotland Network and Universal Recognition (UR) Alba Hub. UR is a Disabled led network working to:
- foster Universal Recognition of marginalised people's worth and humanity.
- ensure everyone is able to Universally Recognise good accessibility and how to action it in how we produce and provide for one another.
Our event is part of DEAL's Global Doughnut Days (GDD). The event will foster opportunities for local organisers to come together to better understand and take action that is safer for people and planet. We have chosen to centre our marginalised and grassroots communities for our Scotland event. Both our attendees and organisers are people experiencing the shortfall at the centre of the doughnut and the Scottish grassroots organisations, campaigns and networks that they belong to. We are focusing on building mutual aid, strengthening solidarity and raising our collective political voice to germinate a safer social foundation.
Where is this event happening?
The event is happening in-person at the Social Hub, Candleriggs Square GLASGOW G1 1TQ
Glasgow, Scotland. If you are based in Scotland and can attend in -person please search Eventbrite for our ticket link and to reserve your space.
Who is this event for?
If you are a community organiser or grassroots campaigner currently working to make the world a fairer place you are likely facing many challenges in today’s political and cultural climate. The rise in the harm and oppression our communities are experiencing can make it all feel overwhelming. We need each other during these troubled times to offer each other active sanctuary and solidarity. We need places where we can come together as allied networks, from all walks of life, to share resources, recuperate and organise. If you are an advocate, organiser, charity, ally, altruistic not-for-profit or creative whose work centres social justice issues - then this lovely folks is event is for you.
Event Schedule
- Doors 3pm
We will check your tickets downstairs in Social Hub. Feel free to gather in the foyer, buy drinks from the bar and mingle for 15 minutes.We are also offering a quiet orientation tour of the event room 3pm until 3:15pm ahead of the event. This option is open to anyone who might need it.
- Welcome 3:15pm
We will start the event upstairs in Meeting Room One with a warm welcome from Rebeca Lee founder of the Universal Recognition movement.
- Panel Talk 'Storytelling for change' 3:30pm
How do we tell stories that influence change as campaigners and marginalised creatives working in the current cultural and political climate. Hear from our panelists on how they navigate the challenges and use their differing forms of storytelling.
Our panelists:
Selina Hayes - founder of Refuweegee and campaigner
Josie Long - comedian and author
Gray Crosbie - spoken word artist and poet
Our panel questions have been curated by Disabled campaigners and creatives from the Universal Recognition movement. The panel questions will be followed by a short audience Q&A.
- Short Break 4:30pm
- Workshop 'Finding ways forwards even in dark times' 4:35pm
Spend the afternoon with our facilitators getting to know each other's challenges and insights. Find ways forward during challenging times using our 'In the Dark' wisdom cards. This card deck is a prototype and has been created with UR's blind working group. The wisdom deck challenges typical mainstream perspectives and enables the blind folks to lead the sighted through times of uncertainty. The cards offer organisers and creatives ways to reflect upon and pursue our ideas for a better future - one that is fairer for people and planet - even during times of material hardship and darkness. For this special GDD use of the cards we will map both our challenges and ideas on to the Doughnut to see where and how they relate. This activity will also offer attendees opportunities to get to know other a little better ahead of the accessible networking session.
- Short Break 5:30pm
- Accessible Networking 5:35pm - 6:30pm
We will use the last hour to chat and connect with each other in the room. There will be opportunities to:
- Visit our showcase tables hosted by organisers and creatives working locally. Discover people’s research, campaigns and sign up to mailing lists.
- Add your details to the written networking table and take down other people’s details. Our connection cards will ask you to write down what your social justice work is, what your offers or asks are in the coming months and how people can connect with you outwith the session.
- Chat to people in the room sharing your offers and asks. We encourage you to make your own plans to meet again or join each other’s mailing lists etc.
- The event will finish at 6:30pm
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Member
Rebecca Lee
Glasgow City, Scotland, United Kingdom
Founder: Universal Recognition Movement. Organiser: Doughnut Economics Scotland Network. About Me Hi I’m Rebecca (Becki). I’m a person and planet centred designer and design researcher. I work in the intersections between service, environment and policy design in relationship to social justice and planetary health. I work in civic/grass roots, participatory action research (PAR) and industry settings. My focus is on the role of accessibility (a verb for enabling equitable participation) in how we design and nurture safe economic systems that support the life of people and planet. My practice is led by the Social and money models of Disability. I was Accessibility and Equity Lead to DEAL’s global communities for Global Donut Days 2023 -2024. I am a visiting lecturer in Design approaches towards accessibility, regenerative economics and Social Justice at GSA SIT. I hold a first class M.Des in Design Innovation and Citizenship from GSA School of Innovation and Technology. My design thesis focused on Speculative Design Towards the Role of Accessibility in a Wellbeing Economy. This co-creative participatory action design research won GSA’s Sustainability Prize in 2022. It also helped me to set up the beginnings of the Universal Recognition movement (see below) with other Disabled designers and innovators. Our community is passionate about the transformative power of accessibility for creating safer and more just economic futures. I am passionate about my work as alongside my professional experience I have personal experience of disability. I am invisibly disabled. I am a child of a hard-of-hearing parent and grew up in a lip-reading household as a young carer to my Mum. I was also an unpaid family carer to my Dad during his terminal cancer. This was during a time of extreme austerity cuts to welfare, social and health care in the U.K. Our economic systems needs to support the realities of our loved one’s care, life and livelihoods. How we produce and provide for one another should safeguard society against harm and disablement rather than be the cause. My lived experience and research explores ways we can recognise and design better design economic systems that are fair and fit for our loved one’s futures. Grass Roots Organising & Research As mentioned I am founder of the Universal Recognition movement - a design movement led by d/Deaf, Disabled and neurodivergent campaigners, workers and innovators. Our members work across sectors to help society build better systems and environments that are fit for people and planet. Our work helps to support individuals and organisations to recognise, value and action accessibility within their work and regenerative initiatives. Through improving accessibility we can ensure no one gets left behind in our action towards regenerative economics. Values Design and systems thinking teaches us that how the planet flourishes directly impacts and is intertwined with (much like woodland brambles and wee beasties) how society flourishes too. Our relationships of Disablement, Disability and health are part of our core ecological relationships and sustainable planetary health. I believe we need equitable Disabled and diverse wisdom to re-wild our how we produce and provide for one another (our economic systems) in a similar we as need biodiversity to nourish flourishing sustainable ecosystems. Our economic system will not create safe and fair circumstances for all if ‘all’ are not enabled to safely and fairly create it - improving equitable approaches and accessibility in design innovation, economic and social research is key to this endeavour. Curious about and researching: - The ways we might transform society/the environment/economics to meet folks’ diverse needs rather than trying to ‘fix’ people to conform to a narrow view of society that doesn’t flex to our natural and needed diversity. - How our economic systems both enable and prevent equitable economic participation - How we start to collectively enable more than we disable all life within how we produce and provide for one another #Accessibility #CoProduction
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Member
Brett Douglas
Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, United Kingdom
I work in financial software development. Agile software development is a haven for the neurodiverse. Finance suits my interests in mathematics and economics, and my need for complex problems to solve. My activist background was in single-issue campaigns in the 1980s-90s that aimed to change public opinion, such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Since then, humanity's primary self-inflicted existential threat moved from nuclear war to the climate emergency. While existential threats are always the priority, I believe that within capitalism all progressive changes are at risk of being rolled back, and lasting change can only be assured within a democratic economy. I'm keen to work with others on new ideas for expanding the democratic economy.
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