With the project „Peace on the Streets“, we brought together 28 youth workers and peace activists from 17 European countries (Austria, Estonia, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Poland, UK, Hungary, Spain, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Belgium, Turkey, France and Slovenia) to reflect on creating campaigns and street actions around peace, non-violence and antimilitarism. It was funded by the European Commission through its Erasmus+ program and took place in Vienna from 1-7 June 2019.
Apart from SCI, the participating youth workers and activists were connected to networks such as War Resisters International, IFOR, Alliance, ICYE and CCIVS. During the training, the participants got to know best practices of campaigns and street actions, both from within their organisations and networks, from historic figures such as Bertha von Suttner and from more recent developments in areas such as guerilla communication and online campaigning.
As part of the training, participants tried out some street action skills on site in Vienna. They decided to protest against the military conscription in Austria and did a demonstration in front of the Austrian Ministry of Defense with slogans like „Military conscription? That’s so 1868!“. During the street action, one participant performing as a soldier that is being colored in army colors while two „doctors“ examine whether he is fit to serve in the military.
Some content of the training course, on project planning and campaign strategy, has been collected in a toolkit that can be downloaded here.
Thank you to Erasmus+ for funding this training course!
