Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA) training - Saturday 29th October
Brainstorm ideas about non-violence, listen to real accounts from Greenpeace activists and practice dragging each other across the floor - all in a day’s training for NVDA!
Anyone who wants to get involved in any non-violent direct actions with Greenpeace needs to do this training first, so that they know what to expect from an action and understand what’s involved. Also, their local network coordinator needs to instruct and assess each person, just to check that they would be ok to take part in actions. Occupying buildings and confronting big organisations can be risky. It’s not for everyone.
There were about ten of us there for the training, mostly from Edinburgh but some as far away as Dundee. The day was very much open to suggestions from the group as to what we wanted to get out of it, but also had a firm structure of what we needed to cover in order to have a successful training day.
We spent most of the morning brainstorming ideas and experiences of violence and non-violence as well as discussing different ways that actions can be perceived and reported. Then we were very fortunate to have one of the activists who took part in the recent Cairn Energy occupation in Edinburgh join us to give us his story. After lunch, we did some (rather amateur ... most of us couldn’t really keep a straight face!) role playing exercises to try and better understand the ways in which a situation can quickly become confrontational if both sides show aggression, and how we can go about bringing a calm approach to the situation with both what we say and how we say it.
The whole day was really useful and I highly recommend it to keen volunteers! I felt I learned a lot about the core values of Greenpeace, and even for stuff I knew already it was good to have a refresher and to have it all put into an activism context. There were plenty of opportunities to ask questions and put aside any niggling fears about, well, anything really. And there’s absolutely nothing to stop you from saying, at the end of the day, “thanks very much, Greenpeace, but it’s not for me,” if you feel that you would rather campaign in different ways - that’s absolutely fine. In fact, it’s encouraged - you can write what you really think on the feedback form.
But, if you think it might be for you – get your name on the waiting list! Talk to your local network coordinator, or you can read more about it here: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/about/taking-action.
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