Big leap forward for ACORN and organizing, if I could be so bold as to say so, as organizers and allies came together in two great meetings in Heerlen.

The first was in a surprising venue, as the ACORN Organizing School took its show on the road in the Netherlands.   We were meeting in the actual circle where the Heerlen city council – all 37 members with name plates that signified their party affiliation – meets to do its regular business.  In classic ACORN style, we might accurately call this a sit-in, but it was by invitation, which never happens.

Ron Mayer, our longtime comrade and friend in Heerlen, who had arranged the venue for the training, briefed me earlier on the historic architecture that informed the space.  When it was built originally, Holland was 90% Catholic.  The ceiling above the desks was a giant circular glasswork.  The message of the design was that when the city directors opened the doors to come in, even without turning on the lights, God was watching from above.

So be it, more than 40 organizers, leaders, and activists from around the Netherlands as well as from Sicily, Belgium, India, and Malta, as well as Canada and the United States, went through an introduction to community organizing.  There was door knocking and of course role plays for everyone to test their skills.  We detailed the outline for an ACORN organizing drive and then jumped into issue campaigns in small groups that were tackling how to win retrofits for substandard housing, which is a global issue.  Good times with good people!

Wham, bang, within hours, back at the ranch, the rest of the organizers from around the ACORN world from France and the UK were also showing up at NIVON, where we were meeting in a giant house that serves as a dormitory of sorts for meetings, small and large.  NIVON is a large volunteer operation and so was dinner, except in our case, it was assigned to first to Scotland with the USA on cleanup, breakfast by Canada, and so on.  New Orleans will be featuring jambalaya as a treat.

When the meeting convened, we were more than 50 packed cheek-to-jowl in the meeting room, as every country gave a report on their progress.  There were the usual stars who recorded another great year.  It had been the 20^th anniversary of ACORN Canada and the 10^th anniversary of ACORN in England, for example.  Jet lag and all other obstacles took a back seat as organizers listened with great interest to the reports from new affiliates in Malta and emerging ones in Belgium and the US.  We were having our first detailed briefing, so it was fascinating.

It’s always hard to win a doubleheader, but we had managed.  To top it off, the debut of the translation equipment got high marks and the meeting venue itself even seem to be passing with a good grade.  We’ll be at this for days, so let’s hope, we’re on a roll in Heerlen!

ACORN International is growing stronger every day! With passionate organizers trained to lead new regional branches, we’re proud to announce exciting expansions across Europe, Asia, and Africa. From Germany to Kenya, and from Belgium to India, our teams are hitting the streets, knocking on doors, and empowering communities with the tools to build grassroots power.

Here’s a glimpse of the global movement in action:

• ACORN UK’s Nick Ballard training Malte from Germany 🇩🇪
• Dharmendra leading Hawkers outreach in Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai, connecting workers with social security schemes 🇮🇳
• Belgian organizer David Prino door-knocking with trainer Naomi Cornelder from the Netherlands 🇧🇪🇳🇱
• Emily Armitage alongside Grace, our fantastic trainee from Kenya 🇰🇪

Together, we’re building a world where everyone has the power to win! Let’s keep growing and fighting for justice worldwide!

ACORN International partnered with Anthropocene Alliance to train 20 environmental justice organizations from the US Gulf Coast on the fundamentals of ACORN’s model of community organizing. It was a big success, and we’re looking forward to training dozens more organizations in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the West Coast.

ACORN International held their “Year End/Year Beginning” meeting in Louisiana this month, including including a one-day training workshop on climate change in the Gulf Coast, and two intense staff meeting days. A major highlight was the critical discussions during Sunday morning’s session!  

From London ACORN:

On Saturday November 28th, London ACORN members and tenants of 186 King Street who have been silently living with pest infestations and lack of maintenance and repairs, held a tenant speakout. Their landlord, Briarlane Rental Property Management, who boasts of owning and managing rental portfolio across Ontario, has been extremely negligent. Tenants need a management that responds to them. Currently, there are no standard office hours when tenants can approach them to get any issue resolved. On top of that, they enter tenants’ units without proper notice! There are even reports that a senior died of heat during summer as the building lacks proper heat/cold conditions. ACORN members and tenants decided to speak out against their landlord to highlight the issues they have been facing.

Close to 20 people joined the action. The action was led by London ACORN leaders. Members were joined by the NDP MPP Terence Kernaghan.

Tenants are demanding that:

• The landlord takes urgent action to do the necessary repairs and maintenance.
• There is a pest management plan which is carried out in a timely manner.
• There is staff and resources available in the building to do general maintenance and repair.
• The building follows COVID-19 related health protocols.
• The City of London needs to take immediate action to ensure that there is greater landlord accountability.  

We haven’t still heard from the Property Management Company & Owner – Briarlane but we will keep the fight on!

It’s small world.  Marva Burnett, the president of ACORN Canada and ACORN International, visited several cities in Nigeria last year with her church group.  She met a young man named Edem Etido in Port Harcourt, a large city much farther southwest from Lagos, the mega-city, but also along the Gulf of Guinea, nearer to Cameroon.  I talked to Edem via Skype about his interest in organizing ACORN Nigeria, and how we could get him some training.  I promised to visit him when I was scheduled to be in Nigeria.  The pandemic postponed that visit three times with the latest now pushed back to the spring of 2021, but in the last week I’ve heard from Edem several times via Facebook and email.  Protests have broken out in Port Harcourt and throughout the country, triggered initially over police brutality suffered by young people, but now expanding to a host of other issues over corruption, the economy, and the inaction of government.

His message was simple and straightforward, as he wrote,

The youths in my country need international support for what we are advocating for at the moment. I guess you’ve heard or watched the protest that’s ongoing in Nigeria now?

The hashtag that’s trending on Twitter now #EndSars #EndPoliceBrutality is the ongoing protest by the youths here because, the (SARS) which means-Special Anti-Robbery Squad, have gone out from what their primary duties are, which is to protect lives and properties of the Nation and citizens.  All they do is intimidate, harass, and extort youths at gunpoint while also killing youths for no reason, because nobody is gonna query or prosecute them.

We’ve been on this for more than a week now and all our governments could do is just make verbal and audio promises which they have been doing way back since 2015 and we are fed up with fake promises, so we demand full action, and that’s why the protest is ongoing.

We just heard that they are going to send the military to intimidate and shoot at us for the peaceful protest. No country has said anything about this and it’s not fair. I don’t know how ACORN International could help to make this protest go round over there, so as to get the international attentions we need.

If I hadn’t heard of these protests already from Edem, and if you hadn’t heard of them yet, there was a front page picture that jumped later to a story in the Wall Street Journal, because the protests shut down the city of Lagos along with its airport and main thoroughfares.

How can we help?  There’s a petition that the young people hope to send to the United Nations that you can sign.  You can also make a donation to support the protests.  As the article points out, “More than 55% of Nigerians are underemployed or unemployed and youth unemployment is even higher, according to official statistics. More than 90% of Nigerians work in the informal sector….”  People in Nigeria are desperate for change, so anything we can do, small or large, helps make that possible.

In Douala, Cameroon, ACORN International members staged an action to push the electricity company Eneo to negotiate and solve issues of dangerous infrastructures and overcharging in bills. Members blocked the entrance to Eneo headquarters, using an empty chair to symbolize the removal of their interlocutor, and the communication interruptions.