The AWETHU School of Organising - No Climate Justice without Black Liberation

A blog for Amnesty International UK written by Jess Mally on behalf of The AWETHU School of Organising

WHERE IT STARTED

The idea for the AWETHU school of organising was born a few years back. Mikaela and I happened to be in New York at the same time. Mikaela was attending Climate week and casually calling out billionaires at their own events (you should absolutely watch them call out Bill Gates here), and I was there delivering anti-racism training and system change work with an organisation. Mikaela had just finished the last edits of their debut book It’s Not That Radical - Climate Action to Transform Our World and we were both feeling like maybe, just maybe change was indeed possible.

It was during that trip that the idea for AWETHU was born. With our combined organising experience and our respective expertise around Climate Justice, Anti-racism and Anti-oppression work, we hoped we could create a space that would equip our communities with the knowledge and the tools of organising around Black Liberation and Climate Justice.

We started AWETHU knowing that we can’t have one without the other but also having experienced time and time again that conversations around the climate crisis and spaces where those conversations are being had, here in the Global North, are still predominantly white.

AWETHU exists to change that.

HOW IT"S GOING

The name AWETHU, comes from the South African Anti-Apartheid chant ‘Amandla, Awethu’ - loosely translating into ‘The Power, It’s Ours’. We chose that name when it became clear that what we were dreaming up, was all about putting the power back where it belongs - with the people.

The program we developed and are currently delivering with a cohort of 12 young Black people, ages 18-24, is proving to do exactly that. It is for those who, though being passionate about social justice issues, have limited or maybe no previous experience in organising, and who would, on the other side of this program, become catalysts for change in their communities. It is incredibly important to us that the essence of community organising is at the heart of AWETHU.

At times it seems that, in the age of social media, many people think organising or activism happens solely online.

We wanted to root our approach in a history of successful organising both here in the UK and around the world and help our cohorts see that community organising is so much more than followers on TikTok.

The program runs across 8 Saturdays with the first few weeks focusing on robust political education and then shifting into how that informs organising practically.

From a module exploring the root causes for the climate crisis and the interconnectedness of struggles, to focusing on self and collective care in movement spaces and unpacking case studies of various community organising groups from South London and Cambridge to the Niger Delta, our program seeks to equip young people with all the tools they need to start organising in their communities.

Throughout the course, we encouraged our cohort to think about the issues they are passionate about and draw the connections between their cause and how liberation anywhere was directly linked to climate justice. As we’re nearing the end of this first cohort, each young person is working on their own community organising project and putting into practice everything they’ve learnt during their time with us.

The feedback from the young people has been amazing and it seems like AWETHU is really meeting a need in our communities. We are currently working on raising funds to make this work sustainable and bring the program back in 2025. Not just for our communities here in London, but hopefully across the UK.

To find out more about our work and about how you can support, head to our website and follow us on instagram @awethu.