This kick-off meeting of the European Municipalist Network will be the opportunity to progress in three main objectives of our network:
Reinforce local movements in Northern europe interested in the municipalist approach.
This will be a first in-person kickoff meeting in Berlin for its new project this coming year. The EMN will focus quite a bit on outreach and making new connections. Important developments in city politics are taking place in Berlin around housing and more. At the same time there is a need for more alignment and development of the local city movements and the municipalist movement in the north. Many good reasons to meet in Berlin this time!
Around 20 people from different regions and institutional origin (activists, researchers, local authorities) will be invited to participate in the meeting from abroad. In addition there will be the Berlin participants. It will be an opportunity to share experiences, learn about developments in Berlin and co -develop the themes and messaging to rally around.
The activities will be structured around and linked to two main themes like ’Cultures and practices of care’ and - ‘Sustainable transition and ecofeminism’. These concepts frame the many different municipalist issues around a narrative. For example: Providing for decent housing can be seen as a culture of care, or managing a commons as practice of care and essential for ecological transition. Bringing everything back to these two themes also informs our communication strategy.
Launch a skill sharing process to reinforce peer to peer learning among municipalist actors.
We all have useful skills for municipalist activism and organising, either through our work in local communities, political activism, advocacy, journalism, communications, coalition building or you name it. These are valuable skills that we do not always share with our peers. Skill sharing is accessible and empowering and allows for sharing skills freely with your community. Skillshares can be practical and useful events that also bring people together, and build networks while moving the community towards self reliance and resilience.
In cooperation with others, EMN will organise a series of online meetings facilitating peer to peer exchange and produce outputs to further disseminate skills, collective imaginaries and discourse.
The kickoff meeting in Berlin will be the opportunity to define issues and topics, and plan the sessions to share experiences, tools, opportunities, challenges, etc, in a peer to peer approach.
The documentation of the online skill sharing session will allow us to build toolkits or guides to share the skills, methodologies, experiences, etc. identified during the sessions with a wider community.
EMN learning space and storytelling.
We’re defining our communication strategy and pedagogical approaches. During the Berlin meeting the EMN participants engaged in these working areas will continue the exchanges. It will also be the opportunity to know more about EMN, our activities and alternatives to participate.