SpunOut.ie Academy of Activism

national | miscellaneous | other press Wednesday June 23, 2010 08:08 by Volunteer - SpunOut.ie

Your Country Needs YOU!!!

Galway, August 6th- 8th 2010 for 16-25 year olds

Roll up, Roll up for SpunOut.ie’s first ever ever extravaganza of activism.

Are you sick of hearing whinges about what’s wrong in Ireland? Yep, we agree and that’s why SpunOut.ie is offering a lucky 12 of you a place on a free of charge, expenses paid* training course in how to change things. SpunOut.ie’s Academy of Activism will take place in Galway City and we hope you are as excited about this as we are!!!

What is it?

Don’t worry any of you who dread going into a ‘class room’ during the summer break this is not, I repeat IS NOT! School; think more of a Guerrilla training camp combined with one of those brilliant late night change- the- world conversations and then you’ll be closest!

With the support of our colleagues at NUIG's Huston School of Film& Digital Media, we have roped in some of our most impressive activist heroes and heroines, a few media mogul-y- types, a scattering of film-makers and even a couple of politicians (no groaning!) to share their ideas and know-how with you.

Over an intensive two and a half days in Galway, we will give all you participants a chance to pick the brains of these people and to share their own experiences. As well as the guests, we have gathered up the best campaign and changemaker examples we know of, from organisations and people all over the world.

So if you want to know things like:

* How to use the media, or even better how to make your own
* When to lobby politicians or when to picket their offices
* When will it work to use street theatre or what use is a petition
* How to get politicians working for you (we pay them you know!!) or when to forget about them and just make things happen yourself !!

Then this course is for YOU!

Applications CLOSE on 19 July 2010, so get going y’all! Fill in your application; tell us why you want to be on this course and what you want to do after you’ve done it.

Pleeeeeease read this bit of info below before you fill in the application form...

SMALL PRINT (but we’ve used big letters so you’ll definitely see it)

* There is no course fee for this course and all materials are free of charge.
* Participants will also be provided with lunch allowances for each day of the course.
* *All participants are responsible for organising and paying for their own accommodation in Galway.
* Applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 25 years old.
* SpunOut.ie will have no responsibility for the participants outside of the scheduled course hours.

*Any selected participants who feel that financial circumstances might prevent them from taking up a place offered on this course should contact sarah@spunout.ie to discuss this. There is a limited travel and accommodation budget available to assist those who might fall into this category.

This innovative all-action project is made possible by funding received from Atlantic Philantropies. More information on The Huston School of Film & Digital Media, who are supporting us with this project, is available by clicking here.

Application Health Warning!!! This application is not a school test - seriously! We aren’t asking these questions to see who has the best spelling or English; let’s leave that to your teachers, lecturers or parents. All we want is to make sure that the participants on our course are people with a passion for action. There are no correct answers so give it to us straight y’all - we are all ears!!!

Finally here’s the application form. Good luck guys and girls:

APPLICATION FORM (Apply yo'self!)

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XQFSJVQ

Phew - you got your application in! Well done - but what next?

Well, first of all, we will send you an e-mail within one week to confirm that we have safely got our paws on your application. Then, we will be going through all the applications one by one, to decide who we think could make the best use of this course just now. Successful applicants will be contacted by e- mail on or before 23rd July with further details and instructions (sounds like a spy film doesn’t it?)

Unfortunately this time, there are only going to be twelve places on our course, but we promise to hold on to the contact details for everyone who applies. So we can let you be the first to know when we are running the second ever SpunOut.ie Academy of Activism.

If you have questions about any of this, drop an e- mail to sarah@spunout.ie and she will sort you out good and proper.