What you can do

Understand the Situation

Understanding the different aspects of an issue is essential in order to be able to plan effective actions. Therefore, before deciding what to do about young people’s access to social rights in your neighbourhood, you should first seek to understand the situation of young people and the social, political and economic environment in which they live.

Devise a Plan of Action

With a good understanding of the situation, you can start to decide on the best course of action. In general, good activism requires good planning. A planning session in the group will help you to focus on exactly what you want and are able to do, and what is the best way of achieving your results. For more ambitious aims, this is probably an advisable first move, since an action that doesn't achieve its desired results can be discouraging. You need to make the first thing you do effective.

Try working through the four stages below within your group:

  • Find out where you stand: do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis for your group.
  • Decide on the problem you want to address, and the results you want to achieve.
  • Think of the best way you can to address it, given the resources in your group.
  • ACT!

 

Take Action

By action, we mean something beyond a "formal" activity and something, which probably includes a wider community than the group itself. Taking action is designed to bring about a result, which is valuable not only from the educational point of view, but also beyond. The actions you plan could be designed to support people affected by the situation, to increase young people’s knowledge about the situation, or to actually change the situation itself.