As the year comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on our work in 2009.  While the story of economic recession has been told on the nightly news through dire images of home foreclosures and job loss, we’ve gotten to see a different side of the story.  We’ve seen that when times are tough and money is tight, communities know that the most effective way to bring about real change is by taking action!

We’ve had a busy year, pulling off some of the most work on some of the least resources in our history.  We’ve helped train, vision, and support actions for groups fighting police brutality, resisting foreclosure evictions, and ending Israel’s assault on the Palestinians in Gaza; groups fighting for clean air and water in their communities; resisting shale gas extraction in NY, and the Tar Sands oil extraction in Alberta; student groups fighting for just policies on their campuses; community groups from New Orleans to Milwaukee working to develop their folks’ skills to serve their communities’ needs; and of course, folks in our backyard here in the Bay Area who are taking Chevron to task and building up community solutions to the impending climate crisis (check out this growing list of eco-justice actions we’re developing!).

In addition to all the community-requested trainings and action support, some of the Ruckus Program highlights from 2009 were:

• The first annual Network RoundUp in January, where folks from our volunteer network of skilled NVDA coordinators and trainers gathered for 4 days in Oakland to share best practices across generations of Ruckus and develop methods to grow and deepen the skills within the Ruckus network.
  

• The Capitol Climate Action in March, where Ruckus helped train, prep and coordinate (with our allies at RAN, Greenpeace, and Energy Action) the first mass civil disobedience for climate justice.  3,000 folks risked arrest at the Capitol Power Plant in Washington, DC, demanding that congress take real steps towards ending the climate crisis.

• Localize This! Action Camp on Vashon Island, WA, in July. Upon request for training by the local Vashon community who was gearing up to (successfully) fight off a multinational corporation from decimating a local island, we used the opportunity to hold one of our cornerstone Action Camps.  Dozens of folks from around the U.S. and Canada convened for a week of nonviolence theory, direct action planning and prep, and hands-on tactical skills such as climbing, blockades on land and sea, and creative visuals.  Several of the participants from the camp went on to take high-level actions against the Tar Sands!  Check out the action on Niagara Falls, and at RBC Headquarters!
  

• West Coast Convergence for Climate Justice & Action (WCCCJA) in September.  As a central planning partner of the Mobilization for Climate Justice-West coalition, we helped host this Bay Area training camp which provided participants with in-depth ecological justice analysis and community solutions tools in addition to direct action training.  MCJ-West has mobilized actions for climate justice each month since the kick-off action at the Richmond Chevron refinery in August, including this action from 9/21 shown here in the U.K. Guardian (that’s our intern, Lydia!), the 10/24 International Day of Action for Climate Justice with 350.org, N30 10th anniversary of the WTO shutdown actions, and December 7th when we blockaded all three gates at Chevron’s Headquarters in San Ramon, CA on the opening day of the COP15 Climate Talks.
  

• Indigenous Peoples’ Delegation action support in Copenhagen Dec 7-18.  Our Indigenous Peoples’ Power Project, under the leadership of Ruckus Program Director Sharon Lungo, helped pull off action after action with Indigenous activists from around the world who traveled to Copenhagen to demand strong and just climate policies at the U.N. COP15.  Check out this video of Sharon in Copenhagen explaining why IP3 was there.

What a year!  Thank you so much to all of you who have supported us financially and otherwise to make all of this important work possible!  We couldn’t have done it without you.

For a sneak preview of what we’ve got in store for 2010, check out our upcoming events page!

We’re back from the Localize This! Action Camp, and already seeing some of the fruits of our labor!

Responding to the call of Backbone Campaign and other local islanders, we brought the Ruckus crew out to Vashon Island in Washington’s Puget Sound July 13-18, for a week of direct action trainings.  In addition to the standard action camp workshops Ruckus has used over the last 13 years, this camp included a track in kayak safety and water blockades, and Backbone held down the creative visuals track.

While folks came from all over the U.S. and Canada – including many from indigenous communities through our IP3 project – there was a strong showing of local Vashon folks, and with good reason:  local islanders are gearing up to fend off a Japanese multinational corporation named Glacier Northwest, who is trying to turn neighboring Maury Island into a gravel mine.  (Check out this great video about the training that aired on Seattle’s King 5 News on July 15!)

Over the course of the week, in between direct action theory and prep workshops, media and messaging, campaign action strategy, and tactical trainings in climbing, blockades on land and water, and visuals, discussions ensued about strategy for both the local Vashon campaign, as well as campaigns from participants’ local campaigns that they’re working on back home.

Local struggles varied across issue-focus, but also intertwined in their overarching theme of environmental justice for the sustainability of land and communities.  And it was clear that we were all there for one reason:  to learn how to take DIRECT ACTION to win our struggles.

Now, just ten days after the camp’s final action role-play day, two indigenous women from Canada who attended Localize This! climbed Royal Bank of Canada’s flagpoles outside their headquarters in Toronto this morning, and hung a banner appealing to the wife of RBC’s CEO to help stop the Tar Sands extraction project in Alberta.  (Click here to read more about the action, which was evidence of local indigenous participation in Rainforest Action Network’s tar sands divestment campaign against RBC).

This is just one example of how Ruckus trainings lead to action, and build the movement’s capacity to WIN.

Keep your eyes open for news about Vashon island’s “Mosquito Fleet” taking to the water to block the gravel mine!  The company could start construction as early as August 15th.