COVID-19 Organizing Toolkit
Updated April 22, 2020
As organizers building a better world with justice for all people, we know that times of great social crisis must be transformed into moments of great possibility. Inspired by generations of resilient organizers, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) national organizing and advocacy staff created this toolkit for local Palestinian rights organizers wrestling with the challenges of this moment.
In this toolkit, you will find resources to care for your communities, build people power using digital tools, and connect struggles from the U.S. to Palestine. We welcome your additions: [email protected]
Many individuals and organizations put together indispensable resources listed here, among them 350, All Things Not Considered by Ileana Hagenah, Equality Labs, Irresistible (fkw Healing Justice Podcast), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), MASA Organizing, PowerLabs, War Resisters League, and Win Without War.
Download This Toolkit as a PDF
Organizing In Our Communities & COVID-19
In this time of instability, community organizers are meeting big challenges with even bigger solutions. The resources below cover organizing in this moment and connecting with other organizers, and articulate demands to defend our communities. In particular, you can boost the demands and connect them to a vision of justice for all, from the U.S. to Palestine.
READ: Top 3 Resources
WATCH & APPLY: Digital Events & Opportunities
- VIDEO: Campaigning During Corona (Movement School)
- Weekly Ongoing Digital Events for Cultural Workers & Community Organizers (Highlander Center)
- Repeatedly Offered Course: Transitioning to Remote Teams & Organizing with “Physical Distance” (Social Movement Technologies)
Grant Opportunities
- Paycheck Protection Program (Small Business Administration, U.S. government); application support available from Proteus Fund
- COVID-19 Mutual Aid Crisis Fund Grant Opportunity (Social Justice Fund)
- Organizers & Mutual Aid Projects Across the Country (Emergent Fund People’s Bailouts)
CONNECT: Platforms to Link With Organizers Across the Country
BOOST: Organizing Demands on COVID-19
Overall
- Demands from Grassroots Organizers Concerning COVID-19
- Statement on COVID-19 and Community Demands (Bay Rising)
Public Health
Worker Justice
- Open Letter to Local Leaders re Worker Protections (Partnership for Working Families)
- National Day Laborer Organizing Network Demands
Migrant Justice
- Demands for Government to Release All People in Immigration Detention (Undocublack)
- Demand ICE Halt ALL Operations and Let Our People Go (United We Dream)
- Impact of Key Provisions of COVID-19 Relief Bills on Immigrant Communities (National Immigration Law Center)
- Postpone the DACA Decision During the COVID-19 Pandemic (United We Dream)
Justice for Caregivers
- AiJen Poo, NDWA: What Do Caregivers Need? (The New York Times)
Justice for Prisoners
- Humane Outbreak Response Platform (coalition of 70+ organizations)
- COVID-19 Statement of Demands (No New Jails DC)
- Examples of Policies That Can Spread Viral Pandemic in Prisons and Jails (Prison Policy Initiative)
- Fact Sheet and Policy Demands for Jails and Prisons (The Justice Collaborative)
Racial Justice & Challenging Militarism
- Denounce Anti-Asian Racism around COVID-19 (National Council of Asian Pacific Americans)
- Preventing Xenophobia and Anti-Asian Racism (National Council of Asian Pacific Americans)
- Coronavirus/COVID-19 Resources to Stand Against Racism (Asian Americans Advancing Justice)
- Lift Sanctions on Iran (The Intercept)
Caring for Our Communities: Tips & Tools for Staying Social During Social Distancing
With new technology and existing community-building practices, we can bridge physical distance to continue deepening the powerful community roots that allow our movements to thrive. Use this moment to invest even more deeply in community connections, care, and healing.
Community Health & Wellness
- PODCAST: Coronavirus: Wisdom from a Social Justice Lens (Irresistible fka Healing Justice)
For People Living With Chronic Illness & Disability
- COVID-19 Prep for People Living with Chronic Illness (Peoples Hub)
- Resources on COVID-19 and Practices Centering People with Chronic Illnesses and Disability (Irresistible (fka Healing Justice) Podcast)
Multilingual Resources
For AAPI Communities
For Muslim Communities
- Resources for Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Organizers (MASA Organizing Network)
- COVID, Inequality, and Social Justice: The Untold Story (CAIR)
- Nightly Facebook Live broadcasts at 8:00 PM EST
For Sikh Communities
- COVID-19 Response and Resources (Sikh Coalition)
For Jewish Communities
- Fight for the Health of Your Community: Seder Readings for Passover 5780 (Rabbi Brant Rosen)
For Undocumented Communities
For Unhoused People
- Recommendations to Support the Health of People Experiencing Homelessness During the Coronavirus State of Emergency (Street Sheet)
For Drug Users
For Survivors
- Resources and Information for Survivors (Futures Without Violence)
- Survivors and the Workplace (Workplaces Respond)
- Domestic Violence Resources on the Response to the Coronavirus (National Network to End Domestic Violence)
For Kids
- Coronavirus Comic for Kids (Culture Strike)
Community Care & Mental Health
Community Building
Consider hosting community events over video call to keep up morale, stay connected, and build the connective people power we need! Making this connection most meaningful and sustaining usually means making new memories together, rather than just catching up or reminiscing. Suggested activities are below!
- Community Building During the Coronavirus (Indivisible)
- Make digital entertainment a group video activity
- Creating text or call check-in routines
- Writing new 20-second hand washing songs or rituals together
- Doing video dance-offs, where you send videos back and forth
- Reading plays or screenplays together via video or phone
- Organizing community poetry writing, digital rap battles, virtual concerts, and/or open mics
- Cooking or baking together over video call for a virtual potluck
- Organizing digital reading groups, skill-shares, or teach-ins
- Seizing the opportunity of home quarantine with these suggestions of individual activities
How to Build People Power Digitally During COVID-19
Despite being unable to meet in person, our organizing is still vital. The need for real interventions and alternatives to the status quo are clearer than ever. The following software tools, trainings on remote work and online facilitation, and suggested organizing tools will help us transition from in-person to virtual organizing. With these, you can host digital gatherings, meetings, and trainings.
Resources on Palestinian Rights Organizing During COVID-19
- National SJP is hosting Virtual Israeli Apartheid Week (see more on Apartheid Week here)
- Calling for Collective Responses to COVID-19 (Scientists of the Palestinian Youth Movement)
- Social Justice in a Time of Social Distancing (Design Studio for Social Interventions)
Hosting Digital Events & Transitioning to Remote Collaboration
- Caring Across Distance: Some Things to Consider Before Hosting Movement Gatherings
- Zoom: Best Practices for Hosting a Digital Event
- Facilitating Online Meetings & Trainings (tips from grassroots activists)
- How to Change a Physical Event to a Virtual Conference
- Trainings to improve your remote organizing skills:
- Training for Change’s Free Trainings in Online Facilitation (in March, register soon!)
- Trainings on Online Meetings and Effective Collaboration (350.org)
- Trainings from Organization United for Respect (a series of trainings on online facilitation—including working from home with kids)
Virtual Organizing Tactics
- Mapping Our Social Change Roles in Times of Crisis (Deepa Iyer, Medium)
- Good overall resource on organizing tactics
- Peer-to-peer texting
- Virtual phone banks
- Write-ins to newspapers
- Call-ins to radio shows
- Social media actions: Posting photos, using hashtags, and tagging people
- Relational organizing: Create phone trees or nodes
- Skills shares around organizing or mutual aid
- Online town halls
- Zoom call actions: People log on and check in with each other, do an action (e.g. call five people you know) and then come back to report and brainstorm
- Digital Lobby Day with big virtual asks: Song videos, visual petitions, video with shared background
Inspiration: Digital Political Education & Organizing From the Past
Political Analysis & Ideas for Our Organizing: Invest-Divest, Health Care, Palestine & U.S. Military Funding to Israel
The current crisis has sharply revealed the contours of the harm people are working to mitigate and prevent daily. As we formulate our organizing responses to a global pandemic, we have the chance to translate this crisis into divesting from militarism and investing in community needs—so we can build a more just world for all, from the U.S. to Palestine.
Divesting From Militarism & Investing in Community Needs
- Where Your Tax Money Really Goes (War Resisters League)
- Map of U.S. Military Funding to Israel: Find your state/county/city’s contribution (USCPR)
- Farhad Manjoo: Everyone’s A Socialist in a Pandemic (The New York Times)
- National COVID-19 Messaging Document (Race Class Narrative)
Fighting Ableism & Racism: Learning From Disabled & BIPOC Communities
- Resources on COVID-19 and Practices Centering People with Chronic Illnesses and Disability (Irresistible, formerly Healing Justice Podcast)
- Maddy Ruvolo: Quarantine, Living with Chronic Illness, & Ableism (sign up for newsletter)
- Alice Wong: Coronavirus and the Disability Community
- Walela Nehanda: I’m Immune Compromised & High Risk COVID-19, Mutual Aid is What’s Saving My Life (Medium)
- Ten Equity Implications of the COVID Outbreak in the U.S. (NAACP)
- Ensuring Racial Equity When Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic (Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health)
- Sean Illing and Natalia Molina: Why Pandemics Activate Xenophobia (Vox)
Resources on COVID-19 Impacts in Palestine
- Fact Sheet: Coronavirus Under Israeli Apartheid (BDS National Committee)
- “If We Can Overcome Coronavirus, We Can Overcome the Occupation” (+972 Magazine)
- Coronavirus Outbreak in the Time of Apartheid (Al Jazeera)
- Coronavirus: Palestinian Inmates Fear for Their Lives in Filthy and Crowded Israeli Jails (Middle East Eye)
- Updates on the Coronavirus Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (World Health Organization)
- Palestinian Workers Face Difficult Choice Between Livelihood and Isolation (Middle East Eye)
- No, Life During the Coronavirus Isn’t Like Gaza (Nada Elia, Mondoweiss)
- COVID-19 Restrictions Offer Window Into Palestinian Experience (Human Rights Watch)
- Lessons From the First Palestinian Intifada (In These Times)
