The day began gently, people sleepily emerging enticed towards the kitchen by porridge, peanut butter on toast and coffee. We checked in, sharing how we were feeling, swapping jobs and then updates; new people arriving!
The first coming together of the day was to split into small groups and check in with each other, looking at the question of 'where are we at with activism'.
People were encouraged to think not just about how their more traditional activism was going but also about how their personal lives were impacting them, how was their wellbeing and mental health. This was done with the understanding that we need to create strong foundations in our life to support the stressful and demanding life of an activist.
There was a strong feeling that as we begin to question more and more, things that once seemed simple about activism, the simplicities of wrong and right, good and bad, have now become more complicated as we become aware of the entanglement of so many issues.
This then can demand even more of us, both emotionally and practically, causing us to cross boundaries of self-care and feel indecisive of where we should be putting our energy.
Later on we came together again to look at plans for the following week, deciding to focus on education, youth story and the future of Radical Restart.
Education was a key theme of the day, with discussion centring on the things that block students from feeling able to question, push and rebel against the oppressive and divisive schooling system.
We spoke about being embarrassed to be passionate about things that are outside of the accepted box and that there is so little culture of rebellion within UK schools at the moment.
The knowledge of alternative learning spaces is so little for so many students that there is just no acknowledgement of the fact they are different ways.
The general thought being that although school is difficult there is no other ways that is of value... this if of course WRONG but one key part of our work needs to be platforming and highlighting the need for alternatives and those who are already doing that work.
The day finished with smoky, carrot soup and songs around the fire using a drum, guitar, a nail, mug, lighter and rocks to create a somewhat random, harmony that we'll say sounded amazing.
Thanks Savannah for the blog today and Sara for the photos! (and Joe for the face...) ------------------------------------------------------
And our camp fundraiser is still running if you're keen to support our work
- every penny hurts the status quo! -
Love and Power from the RR Crew!