While Wellbeing in the mainstream society is mostly connected with saunas and mudpacks, we tried to give it a different connotation in activists circles.
Personal wellbeing (even if the word sounds quite fluffy, but we could not come up with a better one) is about us. It’s about how we deal with the stress of organising and a lot of responsability, it is about our physical wellbeing, about taking breaks, not getting sleep deprived, it is about avoiding burnout and developing sustainable activism, about dealing with fear and trauma from police confrontation, about learning to relax with a lot of pressure on, it’s about knowing your limits and treating yourself well.
Taking care of each other and taking care of ourselves….so we can continue the resistance.

------

The wellbeing space at the Camp for Climate Action near Leeds in September 2006 was a taken on by a group in order to provide resources for the wellbeing of activists.
In 2005 at the Camp in Sterling against the G8, Activist Trauma Support had run a Recovery Dome for people who had been traumatised or felt otherwise they needed support. A lot of people used the space and we felt it successful and needed. But also we had to deal with the issue, that it quickly was called the « Trauma Tent » and thus was hard for people to approach, maybe they felt they only had the right to come in if they were traumatised or where unsure of what be available inside.

We took these points on board. Also we had already started working more on burnout and sustainable activism, since it is a common problem amongst activists and has been nearly entirely neglected as a topic despite the fact that it can have devastating effects. (see burnout flyer on our webpage).

The Wellbeing space
We adjusted our concept and created a wellbeing tent at the camp. The idea was to provide a calm space, away from the Camp centre, but not isolated.
A big sign at the entrance said : « Come in – to have a break, destress, relax, have a cup of tea, talk to somebody, recover, book a massage or book a counselor. »
Our intention was to take the stigma and fear away and make it easier for people to come in.
Inside we had three areas –
reception with information material about trauma, burnout and how to deal with the police, tea making facilities and places to sit,
a recovery area where people could have a laydown,
two more private spaces for body work and talking.
Furthermore we had a second smaller tent in the back, for more intense talking sessions and body work.
The space was open from 11 to 24h, but staffed at all times for emergencies.
We organised ourselves in shifts of 3 hours with 2 people for each shift, everybody taking on one shift per day. Altogether 15 people were involved in running the space, a core group and some satellites. Daily meeting of around 60-90 min. made sure there was debriefing of some sort, place for discussion and group bonding.
We also ran two workshops – one on burnout and sustainble activism and another one on activist trauma and recovery (to book a workshop for your affinity group, contact us per email)

Group debriefings
After the main day of action, some parents from the kids block approached us for a facilitated group debriefing and afterwards another debriefing, especially adapted, was hold for the kids who had been on the kids block. – maybe the first kids debriefing after a kids block action ever… It was very succesfull and we realised how important it is to approach groups and to offer a debriefing after an action or to give them guidelines on how to run one. Typically this is done in go-rounds, going into the roles people had and what they experienced, so that everybody gets a complete picture of what was actually going on, and then going into what people thought and felt, so there is a general awareness of each others emotional state and the brain can process the experience by talking about it. We decided to be more positive in approaching affinity groups and neighbourhood meetings to offer this.

Avoiding Burnout
Offering a space that also key organisers used and generally opening the topic and making it easier for people to talk about it seemed to make a big change to the general atmosphere at the camp. A lot of the times people work far beyond their boundaries and are out of the game for months afterwards. There can even be an atmosphere where having a break is regarded as betrayal. This atmosphere started to change. People with a lot on came in, laid down for a while, got a massage, took time for themselves. This is harder than it sounds if you have a lot of responsability and work and people come constantly running to you. It is hard to take a break and feel confident that things will also happening without you, maybe differently, maybe less efficient, but the world will keep turning. Giving importance to your own wellbeing, makes that you work more efficiently in the end, you can enjoy more and you won’t be totally shattered for ages afterwards.
Offering massages can be very helpful in this respect. This time we did not have enough people to really cover the demand adequatly and were also not well enough organised, but a lot of massages have been given to relieve the emotional stress and physical pains of hard work.

Activist Trauma and Recovery
Since there were not huge amounts of police brutality, not so much trauma support was needed, but it was used by people who had been attacked by the police and also by people who felt stressed by the experience of the day. That this is normal and not something to be ashamed of is part of the paradigm shift we are hoping for. Talking about it, with somebody from wellbeing or a friend is an important step.

“Mental health” matters
Fortunately also people with socalled « mental health issues » feel it is safe for them to come to an action camp. People who had difficulty coping, or who just stopped their medication used the space and the support. It was an advantage for us that our team was so diverse that we could help with different issues. Our age range is from 20 to 50 and includes psychologists, counselors, activists who have been trained in emotional support, bodyworkers and social workers. We hope for a more integrative approach towards different states of mind inside activists communities.

Conclusion
Altogether the experience has been very positive. We got a lot of good feedback. Especially interesting was the point about the changes you can’t see and measure – how people think and talk differently, how it feels different to be a place with a wellbeing space than with none. Some people said it was reassuring in its own way, like having a medic around, even if you might not need her this time. We are aware that there are probabla a lot of things we could have done better or differently. Please let us know if you have any feedback.
Also our group has become more solid, more people want to get involded and work on this. We decided to meet 3 times a year for a weekend from now on in order to give space for more indepth work, rather then hotspot for camps. People working on wellbeing and Activist Trauma Support come from all over the UK and some from mainland Europe.
It felt good to be part of the general political success of the event and fighting repression in a way to make it less easy for them to destroy us and our movements.

Contact :
If you have any feedback, criticism or ideas about our work and our presence at the camp or want to get involved please contact us.  activist_trauma@riseup.net, Phone : 07962 406940
www.activist-trauma.net (with a database of people who offer support and trained counselors and psychologists (write to us to sign up if you want to offer your skills))
 trauma_info-subscribe@lists.riseup.net (send blank email to receive irregular info (low traffic))