Freedom From Oil Action Camp was a huge success! The Ruckus Society teamed up with Rainforest Action Network, Oil Change International, Global Exchange, and Energy Action to train 100 organizers and activist in the heartland in Paoli, IN. The camp brought together impacted and frontline communities, peak oil activist, campus organizers, skilled professionals, climate change radicals and others together in breaking our addiction to oil.
Working across campaigns and drawing connections to the chain of oil destruction was a key component of the camp. Organizers working in post-Katrina New Orleans, struggling with refinery impacts in Texas, fighting with dirty coal in Arizona, doing indigenous rights work in Canada, challenging global climate change, and getting a grasp on peak oil perspectives offered everyone at the camp with great insights.
Students overcame rainy conditions to be trained in campaigning and nonviolent direct action skills. The activists attended workshops on how to effectively talk to the media, legal considerations of doing direct action, and even how to make effective creative visuals. Participants had a great time learning to climb and create blockades for safe, nonviolent direct actions. The activists were able to put the skills and tools that they had learned in the ‘direct action mock action’ at the end of camp. In the role play, participants staged an action to stop one of the dirtiest oil projects – the Alberta Tar Sands. Activist went home excited to help gain independence from oil!