2019
European May
European May aims to empower and mobilise European citizens to participate actively in European democracy and start to get organised.
European May began as a transnational European campaign organised by individuals dedicated to connect people for a progressive transformation in Europe through creative and disruptive local actions all over Europe from May 1st to May 9th 2019.
We started in October 2018 without funding, we self-organised and used the knowledge in our networks on how to setup a transnational progressive campaign. Starting from scratch we build the campaign, the movement and experimented with organising, different ideas and leading a group of activists. The week of action has taken place in 11 cities, in 6 countries in Europe organising together more than 70 events and disruptive public actions.
I contributed to the core committee group, responsible for keeping the time-planning and the longterm strategy in mind. I was also leading the narrative and communication group, focused on building the communication strategy both for onboarding new activists as reaching political impact with our actions.
New Democracy #36: Common Europe 21 May 2019 at Pakhuis de Zwijger
As part of the round table I discussed the young and progressive policy ideas formulated by European May for the European Union. I reflected on the political impact of our actions and the political strategy of our campaign.
Events & Trainings
We organised European May mostly online and only in March 2019 we came together offline in Warsaw during a crowdfunded and European Commission funded workshop.
In April 2019 I represented European May during the Democracy Alive Conference on Texel with participants from ea: the European Commission, Women's Lobby, European Citizens Initiative.
In May 2019 I organised the 'Shake the Summit' conference in Amsterdam with speakers from NL Green Deal, Vote for A Women and Stop Shell.
In 2020 I also co-organised in trainings weekend in Amsterdam for transnational activism. The training was hosted by Justice is Global, a grassroots movements organisations based in the US, and focused on strategic campaigning and building relationship in grassroots movements.
Watch here the European May movie: Conversation about Europe
Film made by Chris Hellwig