Building Resilience, for Sustaining Action

Watching and being a part of the rise in climate action across the world has been exciting and empowering to say the least. More and more people are joining the movement, and we need to ensure we're forming a strong community of activism that can last!

Burnout can happen to any of us, and it's something the Friends of the Earth team are acuetly aware of. Because we work so closely with activist groups (and many of us are in actists groups), in supporting skills and capacity building and helping amplify grassroots actions and campaigns, we feel it's important to not only promote community wellbeing within the movement but also provide opportunities for activists to gain skills in this area.

Taking breaks, allowing others to step up so you can step back, having fun and ensuring our emotional and physical needs are met, are crucial for maintaining activism in the long run.

Following on from the Climate Strike, Aine who now works in activism support, has reached out to youth and mental health organisations to explore ways to address mental health and the climate crisis, particularly for young climate activists. This is on-going and important work as we face into the reality of climate breakdown and the toll it will take on us all and particularly on young people. If this work is something that you are interested in, please contact aine@foe.ie to find out more or get involved.

Meaghan, who runs our educational programmes, has curated a series of workshops focusing on resilience and wellbeing to compliment other trainings that we've been hosting for activist groups across the country. Through this 'Power Up' series, we've had the opportunity to work with skilled facilitators and experienced activists from groups including Undercurrent, Active Hope Network, Student Activst Network, Extinction Rebellion and others.

Our book club and sunrise sea swims have also been a way to connect with our growing community outside of protests, panel talks and trainings. It's important to get together to build not only a movement of people taking to the streets and lobbying their TDs but also build community - a support network so we all have people to lean on when we need it most. And connecting with nature is really good for us too!!

We have a tough road ahead, it's important we are emotionally strong too.