Overview
Austerity measures across the EU have eroded economic and social rights. Citizens and groups have responded to this by re-connecting with their communities and resisting collectively the closing of public facilities, while providing support to community members cut-off from social protection.
The success of community actions around issues such as healthcare, public libraries, and food distribution have created opportunities for developing broader campaigns with the support of a wide range of community actors, as well as providing learning opportunities in building grassroot activist bases and in developing community driven citizen rights campaigns.
This session focuses on how to use community building and participation techniques to respond to the retrenchment of rights and create networks of solidarity, while also looking forward to how to take community initiatives to national and transnational actions.