Training ChangeMakers: A New Birth In Manchester

Greg Galluzzo explains the principles behind the new Manchester Changemakers project, which will be launched later this year.

Working in some of the most deprived areas of Britain, Changemakers will bring together over 40 faith groups, community groups and refugee organisations , so that they can work together to overcome the issues they face. Changemakers uses a model called broad-based organising, which has been used very successfully in the US and other countries. US activist Greg Galluzzo came over recently to provide some training, and gave us his take on broad-based organising.

The principles of broad-based organising come out of a particular analysis of the problems facing communities. Some say that in low-income and working-class communities, the problems are those of crime, unemployment, housing, education, etc. But to broad-based organisers, the problem is that people are conditioned to think that they have no voice in what is happening in their communities. Often, the very activities that are supposed to address problems make them worse. When we meet people’s needs for them, we are sending an unconscious message that they are unable to help themselves, that they are the cause of the problem.

In non-democratic countries, people are blocked from the political process by violence, the threat of violence, loss of livelihood and imprisonment. In democratic countries, the process is more subtle. The complexity of the solution often makes participating difficult. Or there is the appearance of input which ends up simply being a charade. Some say the consultative process in Manchester is just such an exercise. Then there is the imbalance when ordinary citizens try to challenge the policies of officials and bureaucrats – particularly when the citizen is poor, not well educated, or does not speak the language fluently. As a result, the vast majority of people in modern democracies have given up trying to impact public policy, even in the most basic ways such as casting a ballot.

With broad-based organising, we agitate people to see their problems and act on them. We never solve people’s problems; we challenge and advise people to solve their own problems. We are accused of “rubbing raw the sores of discontent.” We call it agitating. We challenge the people not only to see the problem but to see it as a collective problem. An individual cannot challenge public policy effectively – but if they can organise 10, 20, 100 or 1,000 people, they can effect change.

We also force people to see that often, it is not the people’s doing but lack of attention, lack of respect, or even the corruption of public officials that is causing the problem. For example, a lack of affordable housing may be the result of banks and developers deciding that a whole community is to be developed exclusively for middle-class people, even when poor people are presently its residents. The poor become the problem to be eradicated. An organiser would say the problem is that the poor do not have the power to resist the decisions of those who have decided to lay claim to their community.

When the people have been agitated to act on the problem; when they have been challenged to organise their neighbours and community members to act collectively; and when they have come to understand that the problem is that someone is making decisions not in their self-interest, the stage is set for community action. Broad-based organising is nonviolent protest. It targets the person who can make the decision that is in their interest. It uses numbers, humour, and direct action to get a reaction. If done right, it results in decisions made in the interest of those affected by the decision, people breaking out of their sense of powerlessness, and the development of a whole set of new community leaders.

This is the work of a broad-based power organisation.
Greg Galluzzo works for the Gamaliel Foundation. He visited Manchester this March to train community leaders in broad-based organising. Changemakers is a project of Church Action on Poverty (www.church-poverty.org.uk). This article is reproduced by permission from their newsletter.