“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”
Malala Yousafzai
Are you feeling sad, uncomfortable, or angry, and you’re just not sure where to start on a mission to make the world a better place? That is by design. Existing structures of oppression want you to feel hopeless about fixing injustice.
This Advocacy Guide is built to help you focus on taking one small advocacy step at a time to stave off the hopeless feelings and make real change in your community. These steps are general and you can tailor them to most social issues. Whether your concern is early childhood education, housing stability, food scarcity, or reproductive justice, this guide can help you.
When things feel like they’re moving slowly and there’s not a lot you can do, Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us:
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
What’s in this guide:
Advocacy Action Items
On this page, you can get assigned a few action items to tackle (however many you have capacity for in that moment). An item might take some of your time, skills, or money, and you can select a category you have an abundance of if you are short in others.
Action items may have a helpful link or some tips, but if you’re ever unsure, ask your community for help! Societal change happens most quickly and visibly at small levels, so don’t be afraid to get your friends, family, and neighbors involved!
This page is where you can keep track of your progress in completing action items. Advocacy can feel slow sometimes, and it can be helpful to have visual proof that you are actually making a difference.
Additionally, you can find a word cloud that helps track your feelings as you complete tasks. You can add words at any time, but I suggest adding a word before and after you complete a task. Again, this is a visual way of checking in and showing that you are actually making progress!
Here is where you can keep track of any links, resources, and new information you gather. A big part of advocacy is becoming more educated, so make to keep track of all the new things you are learning!