This is a group drawing activity that invites participants to tell their stories about how they came to be anti-racist activists/organizers.  We use it at the beginning of a long program, so that participants can reflect on their lives and what brought them to the room, and then use those drawings as a way to get to know each other.  We do this after we have shared a little bit with the group about our own paths. We like to take a break after this exercise and invite people to look around the room at the gallery of paths, talk to each other about their paths, etc. 

Note: We also like to use a version of this exercise at the end of a long program, as a way for participants to reflect on their experiences through the program, evaluate the program, see where they’ve come and how they’ve changed.

This is a fun and interactive way to do a large group written evaluation of a workshop series or intensive training.  It gives participants a chance to reflect on what they've learned and how they'll apply their learning, as well as a chance to see/hear from other participants about their own reflections.

This workshop is designed for people who are going to attend the World or US Social Forum to better understand the importance of participating in decision-making.  The main activity is called the Table Game where each participant is given a different role/character (i.e. the oil industry, agricultural industry, environmental justice grassroots organization, British Prime Minister, etc) and told to share their perspective and vision with the other characters at the decision-making table.  Participants are given prep sheets that describe what character they represent, who are their members, where does their money come from, what they hope to get out of the meeting, etc.   Depending upon their role, participants are given extra items such as millions in cash, gold watch, thousands of members, inability to speak English, etc. 

The activity is guided by the facilitator who introduces, starts and stops the activity, and the chairperson, who introduces the history of the forum, the funding proposals up for discussion, and develops the rules for table participation, which can gradually change over the course of the game (i.e. to have a seat at the table, you must pay $1 million; to speak, you must pay $1,000 per 10 seconds; to join the private party, you must have a gold watch; etc).   Soon, it becomes clear that the industry and wealthier states hold a lot of power and ability to participate in the decision-making table, and the poorer governments and grassroots organizations are marginalized to the sidelines.   If the marginalized groups haven’t already begun to organize themselves, the facilitator can ask what are they going to do and what have they done with their organization.  The group activity continues and the chairperson can continue administering whatever rules s/he wants – i.e. no interpreters for people not at the table, the table meeting moves to an isolated room, hires security guards or infiltrating spies, etc. Then there is a large group debrief about the activity – what was that like? How did it feel to be in a seat of power?  How did it feel to be excluded from power? 

After this activity, the group reviews the stated goals of the World Social Forum and the World Economic Forum, where their annual meetings are held, who can become a member, and what is their membership structure.  The group breaks into small groups and discuss 1) what are the similarities and differences between these two multi-national convenings; 2) what is the value of creating diverse, multi-sector convenings and 3) what are the implications of who is and who is not able to attend the convenings.  The group reports back to the large group and facilitator wraps up the conversation.

This tool was developed for the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) political education curriculum. It should be used for people who are going to, or have interest in, the 2010 US Social Forum in Detroit. By engaging in this workshop participants will have the chance to learn about the history of Detroit, with different histories (economic, political, movement) broken up into different tracks. After an overview of the history, participants will be introduced to current struggles facing residents of Detroit, and what neighborhood responses have been. There is also an opportunity for people to reflect how the history of Detroit is similar and different to the history of San Francisco, or other cities that the participants may be coming from.

This tool is meant to be used for an audience that does not necessarily have a lot of background knowledge about Detroit. It should be used as a compliment to a general workshop about the history of the US Social Forum.