RRAC hosts first-ever in-person workshop

We want to share some reflections and learnings from our first EVER in-person workshop, which took place on 21st March in collaboration with Doctors for Choice, led by Ben, Ruby, Caroline, Alice and Doctors for Choice’s Dr Jayne Kavanagh. The workshop brought together people from across the UK reproductive rights and justice sector, with the aim of introducing community organising as an approach for Reproductive Justice. On a very sunny Saturday, we were so grateful that over 20 people chose to attend.

The workshop aimed to equip participants with practical strategies and tools they could apply to their own campaigning/organising. It was a condensed version of RRAC’s Bootcamp curriculum, which explores how to combine Reproductive Justice approaches with practical community organising skills. 

Throughout the day, we introduced participants to the foundations of community organising, including campaign structure, power mapping, and how to tell your own activism story through the public narrative framework: Story of Self, Story of Us, and Story of Now. The day concluded with a fascinating reflection from Dr Sabrina Das on her recent research project which emphasised the importance of resilient grassroots approaches to abortion access in the U.S. following the fall of Roe vs Wade. 

We also learned so much from participants as they brought their expertise to the training. For example, during the power mapping session, where participants were asked to map community members according to their influence over a desired change outcome, one group also asked what structural vulnerabilities a person might experience due to their positionality, such as refugee status or financial precarity which might make someone afraid to speak up in a workplace. 

We loved this question: it really embodies the intersection between community organising and Reproductive Justice. We’re going to embed it into our future training.

We left feeling inspired by the conversations that took place throughout the day, and excited about what can happen when we create spaces to learn from one another, build collective skills and organise together. 

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us and contributed so thoughtfully throughout the day, and especially to Doctors for Choice for partnering with us to make it happen. We're excited to keep building this work. Watch this space!