Skills4Crisis
Background of the project design - abstract landscape. Text: Handbook - For those who don't believe that it will get better...but refuse to give up.

Skills for Crisis – Nurturing Communities Beyond Tipping Points – Handbook

What is it all about?

This Handbook is the result of one year of work with a broad network within the framework of “Skills for Crisis – Nurturing Communities Beyond Tipping Points” project. We explored what civil society organisations, communities, and social movements need to act in Solidarity during crises. This Handbook is an invitation—to learn from challenges and forge new paths through collective knowledge from near and far.

A first glimpse of the printed version. 72 pages of methods, concepts and ideas to share.

We are thankful for each and every input and exchange on the way! And acknowledge who couldnt be with us, as well as all the ideas and centuries of work put into the development of Social Movements and Solidarity Communities.

This handbook is for you…

…if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the thought about climate and societal collapse and yet another crisis. It is for you, if you are looking for new perspectives for the future. It is especially for you if you are an activist, organizer, educator or work with social movements in another way and can share some of the inspirations with more people.

How to get it

You can order a printed copy in English following this link: https://form.typeform.com/to/Q7BSaAgK
The Polish and German language versions will be available as PDF soon.

The English language version you can look through in the pdf-reader below (not available for mobile version). Or download with a click on the “Download” button. It is in compressed quality. If you want the high resolution version, please write an E-Mail.

S4C_Handbook_Compressed_ENGDownload

About the Content

Inside, you’ll find a selection of exercises to do alone or collectively, as well as reflections born from both practice and struggle, exploring the risks, pitfalls, and hopes that arise when facing crises. There are some conclusions – and many questions – after one year of working on the topic(s).

  1. Welcome
  2. Getting started
    2.1. Definitions and concepts
    2.2. Hospicing Modernity
    2.3. Inclusive Disaster Management
    2.4. Shock Treatments of Societies
    2.5. Politics of Emotion
  3. Diving Deeper: Our 5 Dives / Streams of Thought
    3.1. Strengthening Civil Society
    3.2. Re-Centering Mental Health
    3.3 Fighting for Transnational Justice
    3.4. Solidarity in the Face of Climate Disasters
    3.5. Understanding the Path of People on the Move
  4. Outro
    4.1. Biographies
    4.2. Further Resources
The handbook is full of methods, quotes, case studies and drawings to share, use and improve.

The process

  • A very brief summary of the conversations about the topic
  • An Individual Exercise for self reflexion or solitary practice
  • A Collective Exercise to do in your group or when facilitating a workshop
  • Skills to Nurture which we believe we need in order to be able to act in solidarity in moments of crisis
  • Further resources

We started with the inputs and workshops, which you can explore on our ressources page [link]. Then we asked some of the facilitators to send us material for these elements:

As project team we edited and designed the handbook and had it translated to make it accessible for more people.

The creators

Publisher:
Verein Humus, Austria (humus.live)
Educat e.V., Germany (educat-kollektiv.org)
Stowarzyszenie Czasu Kultury, Poland (czaskultury.pl)

Project team members: Agata Rosochacka & Barbara Sarnowska (Czas Kultury), Jayda Sauseng & Laura Grossmann (Humus), Maria, Masha & Fine (Educat Kollektiv)

Editors: Laura Grossmann and Jayda Sauseng (Humus)

Design: Fine, Maria (Educat)

With Contributions from all the lovely people you can find in the biography section

Website and Social Media: Tima, Maria

Resources

We have been inspired by wonderful people – everyone individually during activism and pure living and all together within the processes of this project. We try to acknowledge the roots, work done and love put to the concepts and ideas we work with and try to learn from. A lot of ideas and materials we are sharing and working with will be from marginalized, BIPoC thinkers and activists. We will acknowledge, where we know them. And include discussions, work and learnings on colonialism, racism and appropriation into our journey.

In this section you find step by step outputs and documentation of the project and material we collected during the journey.

Outcomes of the project

We are not there yet…upcoming soon.

Skills for Crisis - Solidarity with People on the Move. abstract landscape colored with people as black forms
Methods

Workshop Concept Solidarity with People on the Move

From the experiences and content of the online and offline Workshop, we produced a Workshop Concept to share with you and your groups. It contains methods and proposals for timeslots and breaks.
Skills for Crisis - Facing Extreme Weather - Abstract Clouds Colored
Methods

Workshop Concept Solidarity in the Face of Climate Disasters: Mutual aid as an antidote

From the experiences and content of the online and offline Workshop, we produced a Workshop Concept to share with you and your groups. It contains methods and proposals for timeslots and breaks.
Skills for Crisis - Fighting for Transnational Justice. coloroed Landscape Abstract Background
Methods

Workshop Concept Fighting transnational justice: How to Struggle together?

From the experiences and content of the online and offline Workshop, we produced a Workshop Concept to share with you and your groups.
Skills for Crisis - Strengthening Civil Society. abstract and colorful shattered pieces
Methods

Workshop Concept Strengthening Civil Society Work

From the experiences and content of the online and offline Workshop, we produced a Workshop Concept to share with you and your groups.
Skills for Crisis - Centering Mental Health. In the background a circle of abstract and colored tiles.
Methods

Workshop Concept Re-Centering Mental Health

From the experiences and content of the online and offline Workshop, we produced a Workshop Concept to share with you and your groups.
An abstract landscape, in front the skills for crisis Logo and a sketch of a Podcast Mic.
Podcast

Audio Sessions

Talks and Inputs from and with Workshop facilitators. Insights and methods on our 5 Streams of Thought.
A dark blue background with white figures. One illustration showing them in need in high water, one as fishes in Solidarity. Text says: Flooding in Ahrtal Case Study
Methods

Case Study – Flooding in Ahrtal

This Case Study was designed by skills4crisis as part of the workshop: “Solidarity in the face of climate disasters. Mutual aid as an antidote”
A dark blue background with white figures. One illustration showing them in need in high water, one as fishes in Solidarity. Text says: Typhoon Haiyan Case Study
Methods

Case Study – Typhoon Haiyan

This Case Study was designed by skills4crisis as part of the workshop: “Solidarity in the face of climate disasters. Mutual aid as an antidote”
Screenshot Article
Article

Perverse Possibilities of Capitalist Collapse

online article on “Neoreaction and Dark Enlightenment as an Authoritarian Alternative to the Structural Crisis of Global Capitalism” – as input of our kick-off online event
Article

From (Individual) Fears to (Collective) Cares

The Documentation of the Input on “From (Individual) Fears to (Collective) Cares” for our Online Kick-Off in May 25.
Sparks

Little Spark

To include you into the project, some little sparks Fine from Educat Collective created, to transform the topics into illustrations.

Inspiring Material

Stroll through inspiring thoughts and sparks by turning the carousel with a click on the arrows left and right.

Book Cover Beyond Molotovs - A Visual Handbook of Anti-Authoritarian Strategies
Book

Beyond Molotovs – A Visual Handbook of Anti-Authoritarian Strategies

This publication brings together more than 50 first-hand accounts of anti-authoritarian movements, activists, artists, and scholars from around the world, focusing on the sensuous and emotional dimension of their strategies and their approaches to crisis and social change. by: International Research Group / kollektiv orangotango (Eds.)
Book

Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism

by Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures and Vanessa Machado the Oliveira
Black people handing out food cans to people. Building Power while the lights are out. Disaster, Mutual Aid and Dual Power
Book

Building Power While the Lights Are Out: Disasters, Mutual Aid, and Dual Power

Multiple Authors – The insights, visions, and experiences the authors in this book share offer a valuable road map to meet the climate crisis head on, struggle for a just recovery when disasters do hit, reimagine our relationships to each other and the planet, and as the Zapatistas taught civil society, “Don’t seize power, exercise it.”
Screenshot of Youtube Title of the Film with people crouching at a river
Video

Rette sich, wer kann – wie der Katastrophenschutz für Menschen mit Behinderungen versagt.

A Documentary by andererseits about how state disaster response fails people with disabilities. (German only)
Yellow and white book cover with the title "Mutual Aid" by "Dean Space" written on it
Book

Mutual Aid

This book by Dean Space is about mutual aid: why it is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it. It provides a grassroots theory of mutual aid.
How to survive the end of the world Podcast Picture with the Brown sisters framed by a cicle
Podcast

How to Survive the End of the World

A podcast by adrienne maree brown and Autum Brown about how to learn from apocalypse with grace, rigour and curiosity.
an abstract picture with a robot sitting above a huge tea cup
Book

Burnout From Humans

by Gesturing Towards a Decolonial Future Collective / Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. “…a provocation to challenge human exceptionalism and rethink intelligence.”