Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

The WELLBEING SPACE @ the Cli­mate Camp
— Analy­sis and Expe­ri­ences -
By Activist Trau­ma Sup­port and the Well­be­ing Group at the Cli­mate Camp

While Well­be­ing in the main­stream soci­ety is most­ly con­nect­ed with saunas and mud­packs, we tried to give it a dif­fer­ent con­no­ta­tion in activist cir­cles. Per­son­al well­be­ing (while the word may sound quite fluffy to some, and while we were at first unsure about it, by the end of the Cli­mate Camp it was obvi­ous that it worked well) is about us. It’s about how we deal with the stress of organ­is­ing and a lot of respon­si­bil­i­ty, it is about our phys­i­cal well­be­ing, about tak­ing breaks, not becom­ing sleep deprived, it is about avoid­ing burnout and devel­op­ing sus­tain­able activism. It involves deal­ing with the fear and trau­ma caused by police con­fronta­tions, it involves learn­ing to stay calm when there’s a lot of pres­sure on, and most impor­tant­ly know­ing your own lim­its and treat­ing your­self well. Tak­ing care of each oth­er and tak­ing care of ourselves….so that we can con­tin­ue our resis­tances.

The well­be­ing space at the Camp for Cli­mate Action near Leeds in Sep­tem­ber 2006 was a tak­en on by a group in order to pro­vide resources for the well­be­ing of activists. In 2005 at the Camp in Stir­ling against the G8, Activist Trau­ma Sup­port had run a Recov­ery Dome for peo­ple who had been trau­ma­tised or who felt they need­ed sup­port. A lot of peo­ple used the space and we felt that it was suc­cess­ful and need­ed. How­ev­er there was also the issue that it quick­ly came to be called the ‘Trau­ma Ten­t’. This made it hard for peo­ple to approach, it being some­what unclear what was avail­able inside, and pos­si­bly some peo­ple feel­ing that maybe they only had the right to come in if they were trau­ma­tised.

We took these points on board. Also we had already start­ed work­ing more on burnout and sus­tain­able activism, since it is a com­mon prob­lem amongst activists and has been near­ly entire­ly neglect­ed as a top­ic, despite the fact that it can have dev­as­tat­ing effects. (See burnout fly­er on our web­page).

The Well­be­ing space

We adjust­ed our con­cept and cre­at­ed a well­be­ing tent at the camp. The idea was to pro­vide a calm space, away from the Camp cen­tre, but one not too iso­lat­ed. A big sign at the entrance said: ‘Come in – to have a break, de-stress, relax, have a cup of tea, talk to some­body, recov­er, book a mas­sage or book a coun­selor.’ Our inten­tion was to take the stig­ma and fear away and make it eas­i­er for peo­ple to come in. Inside we had three areas – a recep­tion with infor­ma­tion mate­r­i­al about trau­ma, burnout and how to deal with the police, tea mak­ing facil­i­ties and places to sit, a recov­ery area where peo­ple could have a lie-down, two more pri­vate spaces for body work and talk­ing.

Fur­ther­more we had a sec­ond small­er tent in the back, for more intense talk­ing ses­sions and body­work. The space was open from 11 to 24h, but staffed at all times for emer­gen­cies. We organ­ised our­selves in shifts of 3 hours with 2 peo­ple for each shift, every­body tak­ing on one shift per day. Alto­geth­er 15 peo­ple were involved in run­ning the space, a core group and some satel­lites. We held dai­ly group meet­ings of around 60–90 min­utes, which made sure that there was a mech­a­nism for debrief­ing, as well as a place for dis­cus­sion, group bond­ing, updates and organ­is­ing.

We also ran two work­shops – one on burnout and sus­tain­able activism and anoth­er one on activist trau­ma and recov­ery (to book one of these work­shops for your affin­i­ty group, con­tact us by email)

Group debrief­in­gs

After the main day of action, some par­ents from the kids block approached us for a facil­i­tat­ed group debrief­ing and after­wards anoth­er debrief­ing, espe­cial­ly adapt­ed, was held for the kids who had been on the kids block, – maybe the first kids debrief­ing after a kids block action ever… It was very suc­cess­ful and we realised how impor­tant it is to approach groups and to offer a debrief­ing after an action or to give them guide­lines on how to run one. Typ­i­cal­ly this is done in go-rounds, going into the roles peo­ple had and what they expe­ri­enced, so that every­body gets a com­plete pic­ture of what was actu­al­ly going on. Then going into what peo­ple thought and felt, so there is a gen­er­al aware­ness of each oth­ers emo­tion­al state and so that the brain can process the expe­ri­ence by talk­ing about it. We decid­ed that we need to be more proac­tive in approach­ing affin­i­ty groups and neigh­bor­hood meet­ings to offer this.

Avoid­ing Burnout

By also offer­ing a space that key organ­is­ers felt com­fort­able using, while gen­er­al­ly open­ing up the top­ic and mak­ing it eas­i­er for peo­ple to talk about burnout, there seemed to be a big change in the gen­er­al atmos­phere of the camp. A lot of the time peo­ple can work far beyond their bound­aries and then they are out of the game for months after­wards. In this man­ner atmos­pheres can be cre­at­ed where tak­ing a break is regard­ed as a betray­al. This atmos­phere was ques­tioned and start­ed to change. Peo­ple with a lot on came in, lay down for a while, got a mas­sage, or just took time for them­selves. This is hard­er than it sounds if you have a lot of respon­si­bil­i­ty and work and peo­ple come con­stant­ly run­ning to you. It is hard to take a break and feel con­fi­dent that things will also hap­pen­ing with­out you, maybe dif­fer­ent­ly, but the world will keep turn­ing. Giv­ing impor­tance to your own well­be­ing enables you work to work more pro­duc­tive­ly. You can enjoy more and you won’t be total­ly shat­tered for ages after­wards. Offer­ing mas­sages can be very help­ful in this respect. This time we did not have enough peo­ple to cov­er demand ade­quate­ly, and in truth we did not organ­ise this area well enough, but at the same time a lot of mas­sages were giv­en to relieve the emo­tion­al stress and phys­i­cal pains of hard work.

Activist Trau­ma and Recov­ery

Since there was not a huge amount of police bru­tal­i­ty, not as much trau­ma sup­port was need­ed; but it was used by peo­ple who had been attacked by the police and also by peo­ple who felt stressed by the expe­ri­ences of the day. That this is nor­mal and not some­thing to be ashamed of is part of the par­a­digm shift we are work­ing towards. Talk­ing about it, with some­body from well­be­ing, or a friend, is an impor­tant step.

“Mental healthâ€? mat­ters

For­tu­nate­ly peo­ple with so called ‘men­tal health issues’ also feel that it is safe for them to come to an action camp. In this sense the space and the sup­port was used by peo­ple who had dif­fi­cul­ty cop­ing, or who had just stopped their med­ica­tion. It was an advan­tage to us that our team was so diverse, in this way we could help with var­i­ous dif­fer­ent issues. Our age range is from 20 to 50 and includes psy­chol­o­gists, coun­selors, activists who have been trained in emo­tion­al sup­port, body work­ers and social work­ers. We hope for a more inte­gra­tive approach towards dif­fer­ent states of mind inside activists’ com­mu­ni­ties.

Con­clu­sion

Although the peo­ple work­ing on well­be­ing and Activist Trau­ma Sup­port come from all over the UK, and some from main­land Europe, over the course of Cli­mate Camp our group has become much more sol­id, with more peo­ple want­i­ng to get involved and work on this. To build upon this we have decid­ed to hold week­end meet­ings, 3 times a year, from now on, in order to give space for more in-depth work; rather than just work­ing at camps and con­ver­gence cen­ters.

Alto­geth­er the expe­ri­ence has been very pos­i­tive. We got a lot of good feed­back. Espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing was the point about the changes you can’t see and mea­sure – how peo­ple think and talk dif­fer­ent­ly, how it feels dif­fer­ent to be at a place with a well­be­ing space rather than at one with none. Some peo­ple said it was reas­sur­ing in its own way, like hav­ing a medic around, even if you might not need her this time. We are aware that there are prob­a­bly var­i­ous things we could have done bet­ter or dif­fer­ent­ly. Please let us know if you have any feed­back. BTW, we as indi­vid­u­als inside this group also keep learn­ing what we preach, still strug­gling at times…This is a learn­ing process for all of us, the more peo­ple involved the more effec­tive it will be. At this stage in that process, it felt real­ly good to be part of the gen­er­al polit­i­cal suc­cess of the Cli­mate Camp, espe­cial­ly in the sense of fight­ing repres­sion in ways that make our move­ments stronger and more ver­sa­tile.

Con­tact:
If you have any feed­back, crit­i­cism or ideas about our work and our pres­ence at the camp or want to get involved please con­tact us.  activist_trauma@riseup.net, Phone: 07962 406940
www.activist-trauma.net (with a data­base of peo­ple who offer sup­port and trained coun­selors and psy­chol­o­gists (write to us to sign up if you want to offer your skills))
 trauma_info-subscribe@lists.riseup.net (send blank email to receive irreg­u­lar info (low traf­fic))