Spotlight

photograph of Deena Ladd

Learning Changes, Vol. 1 No. 1 Fall 2009

Deena Ladd

by Melissa Fong

Deena Ladd of the Workers’ Action Centre (WAC) has been using popular education as a technique to advocate with workers for two decades. Naturally, Deena is one of the first people the Anti-Poverty Community Organizing and Learning (APCOL) project approached, to help identify key ways in which anti-poverty organizations engage their members. My interview with Deena illuminated the importance of reciprocity and learning circles to sustaining a vibrant activist organization.

Learning Changes, Vol. 1 No. 2 Spring 2010

Chris Harris Reflects on Social Movements and Community Organizations in Today’s Toronto

In January 2010 APCOL’s Guest Speaker Series welcomed Toronto activist Chris Harris (formerly of the Black Action Defence Committee, BADC, Toronto) who spoke to OISE/University of Toronto students and other community activists. This is the opening part of his talk. Chris sits on the Steering Committee of the APCOL project.

photograph of Chris Harris

Neighbourhood organizations in the Third World are set up by people’s movements. Sometimes it’s labour, the women’s movement, or the anti-racist movements who get things moving. Those organizations are under-resourced, don’t have any formal support, but respond directly to the needs of the people and form the base for broader social justice and radical movements to transform society. They become the training ground from which militants arise.

Learning Changes, Vol. 2 No. 1 Fall 2010

Discussing Activist Learning and Development with John Clarke

by Peter Sawchuk

On September 28, 2010. I sat down with Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) leader John Clarke to discuss how activists and organizers develop, and the future of organizing and social change. Clarke emphasized the importance of opportunities for activist groups to have debates, dialogue, to learn and work with ideas. Here some kind of new political formation – a formation that develops not simply ideas but programs that go beyond activism – is useful to both discuss and define. The following is a condensed transcript of our discussion.

Learning Changes, Vol. 2 No. 1 Fall 2011

Discussing Activist Learning and Development with Judy Duncan

by Peter Sawchuk

Hot on the heels of the publication of Global Grassroots: Perspectives on International Organizing (Social Policy Press) as well as their recognition this year as one Toronto’s leading activist organizations (Now Magazine, 2011), Peter Sawchuk sat down with Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) Toronto organizer Judy Duncan to discuss two issues: how social activists emerge generally, and how organizers develop in ACORN specifically.

Learning Changes, Vol. 4 No. 1 Summer 2013

Systems Thinking and Social Change: Michael Shapcott of the Wellesley Institute

by D'Arcy Martin

Learning Changes, Vol. 5 No. 1 Winter 2014

Spotlight on Nina Wilson

Excerpts from keynote speech at the Push Back! Move Forward! APCOL/TCDI conference on October 19, 2013 by Nina Wilson, Nakota, Dakota, Plains Cree from the Kahkewistahaw First Nation in South Eastern Saskatchewan in the Crooked Lake Agency of Treaty 4 Territory. Nina Wilson is one of the co-founders of Idle No More.