Category: Tool box

A report on the annual meeting of the workshop for non-violent action

The workshop for non-violent action is always quite close to the political campaign events when it comes to new participative movements.

At the end of March 2026 in the WeltHaus Heidelberg, Germany, during the exchange between the activities of the workshop and the young activists from Heidelberg, Fridays for Future and Schülis against compulsory military service.

All of us are concerned about how today civil disobedience and non-violent resistance can be used in the movements around us and what needs or wishes arise for the workshop work. The historical experiences and theoretical knowledge of non-violent resistance are not genetically inherited, but are repeatedly experienced, learned and developed.

Young and older generations find together

We share the experience of waveformity of movements, such as experienced at FFF. And we note how important it is to be able to bring and use experienced and experienced into new movements and relationships. Positive experiences of self-reality in school strikes against compulsory compulsory military are also experiences with repression through school lines. Repression experiences by the police are a major regular topic for repression, while the experiences of massive civilian disobedience are positive for very many young people.

Unlike in previous one-point movements, such as NATO retrofitting or atomic power, the current movements underline and respect the intersectionality, i.e. the overlap and simultaneousness of different forms of discrimination against a person. Nor is it approached against climate catastrophe, conscription and right-wing extremism without capitalism criticism. This places particular demands on the complexity of political campaigns.

Concrete needs are open and at the same time protected spaces, resources for own actions, learning basic principles and methods of non-violent resistance, and reflection and advice in strategic campaign planning. In addition, the desire for exchange between younger and older movements and their activities is clearly expressed in order to be able to learn further from each other in both directions.

More information

https://fridaysforfuture-heidelberg.de/
https://www.instagram.com
https://www.instagram.com/respondinghd/

Written by Harald Müller

Written by Sara Fromm, movement worker at WfGA.

Our former management Sara Fromm has published a book. We can look in.

Climate crisis. Right. Upgrade. Crisis, as far as the eye is concerned. And it just seems to be getting worse. When I last year Lendelion Verlag I was asked whether I would like to write a book on the topic of "climate crisis and work", I thought: an exciting topic – but what it really needs is, above all, practical action to advance the urgently necessary social changes.

Individual changes in consumption or behaviour are not sufficient. What we need to do instead – and the workshop has been supporting for 50 years – is political action. To act together, to organize us and to empower ourselves in the end. And as strategic as possible. During my time, I was able to learn a lot as a managing director at the workshop, but also now as a freelance employee. And that's why I'd rather write a book about it, hoping that there is courage and confidence – and moving people to action.

Reading sample from ‘Confidence now – bravely encountering the crises of the world“:

I'm still seeing a young woman being dragged away from police over the asphalt. The police are gradually working: the blockade we built on the bridge in the middle of Madrid this morning with our bodies. We are here because we are calling for a different transport and climate policy from the government in Madrid and Spain. Because all the demonstrations and petitions have so far not brought much, today, in 2019, we are sitting on the streets on a Saturday morning at the first mass campaign of the climate justice movement in Spain. Before me, someone starts shouting loudly: "Show me what democracy looks like!" and we answer in the voice song: "This is what democracy looks like!"

I'm getting nervous when looking at the police: in which the patience thread is torn or never had one – and directly with bums and pain grips. While I repeatedly call "This is what democracy looks like" and thus show my confidence in democracy and the fact that our protest is part of this negotiation process, it hails pain grips around me. How cynical, shoot my head. Democracy can also look like this – if false values are enforced by violence and peaceful protests will counter the entire broad side of state violence.

Successes are not linear progress. Social movements do not always take steps forward. Instead, 'Lowers are part of our path', as Timo Luthmann put it. And there are phases in which social movements have more success than in other times. These phases can be reflected with different concepts, such as the 'years' of the Ayni Institute or Bill Moyer's 'Movement Action Plan'.

Social movements are the key to progressive social-ecological change. For the changes we need so urgently in our society, we must work together to organize ourselves for this. We all can and should be part of social movements. And for topics that are particularly close to our hearts, not only enter the electoral booth, but also on the street. Without people who have done exactly this in the past, we would not be where we are now. Without the fights of the women's right movement, I could not go to vote today. Without the workers, the 5-day week would be unthinkable.

The great thing about it? We can learn from our predecessors. We do not have to reinvent the wheel completely, but can benefit from the experience of others. It is worth taking a look at some successful examples from recent decades: the American civil rights movement, the German anti-atomic movement and the Argentine feminist movement.