It has been a non-stop summer of training here at Wellstone Action, especially for our staff and trainers of the Movement Building Project. Last month, we were in Chicago, training over 100 students and staff of Energy Action Coalition to launch Power Vote 2010.
This wasn’t our first training with the Energy Action Coalition; we’ve partnered on numerous occasions to help them build a powerful, long-term movement for change. As you might recall, St. Paul played host to Power Vote in 2008 and Wellstone Action staff trained 200 students as they were gearing up to gather pledges from peer students on their respective campuses that they would vote in the 2008 election and make clean energy a top issue.
And then there was the massive Power Shift in 2009, where Wellstone Action was part of the front-lines training and leading role-playing of lobby visits in preparation for the massive demonstration on Capitol Hill and visits with members of Congress that followed.
Now, in preparation for Power Vote 2010, the focus is again on voter engagement as a part of climate change work and translating that power into votes come November. This year’s training focused heavily on not just recruiting volunteers and mobilizing students to sign pledges to vote, but holding those students accountable to Get Out Our Vote this election. To accomplish these goals, Wellstone Action provided key training around areas of voter mobilization, practicing skills in class raps, GOTV best practices, and adapting our signature campaign timeline exercise into issue-based work, where students determined over the course of their campaign, the best times to schedule voter outreach.
In addition to the few days of training, the students also took part in events in the community, teaming up with the local environmental justice organization to protest one of the oldest and dirtiest coal plants in the Little Village neighborhood in Chicago. Check out these great photos from the training and their action at the Crawford Coal Plant.
photos by chesapeakeclimate on flickr
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