DIY assemblies at The Big One
September 27, 2023 by Extinction Rebellion
It’s been a while since we all gathered on the streets in Westminster, but there are still amazing things coming out of The Big One!
The Big DIY Assemblies team has worked hard to produce a summary of the outcomes of the DIY assemblies that took place on the streets (literally!) in April.
The questions we asked participants were:
Day one: How might we make stronger connections between our different groups to be more impactful together?
Day two and three: How might we act together to elevate the rights of nature in everything we do?
You’ll notice that a lot of our strategy is built around some of the recommendations of the DIY assemblies – especially organising more (community) assemblies to address local issues and encourage relationship building, as well as more emphasis on decentralised, regional actions. As you may already be aware – over 20 groups around the UK are in the process of organising, or have already organised, community assemblies in their local area. This appeals to the large group of people who are seriously concerned about the climate and ecological emergency, but for whatever reason cannot take part in direct action.
The suggestion was also made that we need to put “time and effort into relationships and perhaps finding and collaborating on local issues that matter to many groups”, not just XR.
Again, this greatly underpins our strategy of community assemblies – creating a project where we work together with different groups, forming trust and alliances.
The deliberation on day two and three of The Big One evolved around how we elevate the rights of nature in everything we do. The results show clearly that people feel nature is being seen too much as something that is seperate from us, something that we can control and exploit. Ideas about ecocide laws and giving rivers, seas, and wetlands rights as legal entities were suggested. The right to access to nature was also high up on the list, as well as sharing green spaces with communities.
The report is now ready for you to browse – it is a summary of highlights of the assemblies. You can also find the more detailed results in the links in the report.
Read the report: XR Big DIY Assemblies at The Big One