Neighbourhoods

The camp will be organised in neighbourhoods. Your Neighbourhood is your “home” for the duration of the camp.

This means that:

  • You will camp in a Neighbourhood. If you haven't already organised to be in one, there'll be space in existing neighbourhoods.
  • You eat breakfast there, where you ‘check in’ with the other people in your neighbourhood and bring up any logistical problems with the camp.
  • Each neighbourhood allocates one person to relate any camp logistics problems back to a maintenance working group to deal with them (this happens directly after breakfast).

Why neighbourhoods?

The neighbourhood system is intended to:

  • encourage people to mingle and meet others with different levels of previous experience in activism,
  • give people the opportunity to meet others from the same town, begin working with them, and possibly continue working with them beyond the camp.

You can form or join a neighbourhood before the camp, or just join one when you get there.

Neighbourhoods are encouraged to be based on geography. For example, there will be a Newcastle neighbourhood, for people from Newcastle. Some neighbourhoods may be based on other commonalities, for example there may be a women's only neighbourhood.

Register your Neighbourhood

That way other people can see what neighbourhoods there are already and think about joining yours or be inspired by what you're getting together for the camp. There's a short form on the Registering Neighbourhoods page.

 

Neighbourhoods Already Existing

  • West Australia
    • Contact: David - 042 113 2044, West Australian Student Environment Network - WestASEN at gmail dot com
    • Who it's for: Anyone who is from WA.... Or just likes WAliens
  • Queensland
    • Contact: Ellie and Cassie: Climate dot action dot qld at gmail dot com
    • Who it's for: Anyone from Queensland
  • The Greens
    • Contact: Mira Wroblewski: mira_w at iprimus dot com; 0423 163 360
    • Who it's for: Greens members or like-minded people.
  • Mayfield East Residents Group
    • Contact: Jen: feraliris at yahoo dot com dot au
    • Who it's for: Organisers of this neighbourhood are primarily founders & members of the Mayfield East Residents Group - living in various parts of Mayfield - but anyone can join this neighbourhood if they want. It will have lots of kids, creativity & passion for protecting the environment.
  • Sydney Food Not Bombs
    • Contact: sydfoodnotbombs at gmail dot com
    • Who it's for: Open to all from Sydney and surrounds who are down with the Food Not Bombs philosophies. We are an open collective who organise in a non-heirarchical manner. We are pro-feminist, anti-racist, anti-homophobic, etc, and will have a safer spaces policy ready soon to reflect this. Please visit www.sydfnb.tk to participate in discussions of this.
  • Victoria
    • Contact: Lucy 0410 077 186, Sam 0401 166 484
    • Who it's for: Anyone from Victoria
  • Friends of the Earth
    • Contact: Cam Walker: cam dot walker at foe dot org dot au
    • Who it's for: Anyone connected with or interested in FoE
  • Parents' Neighbourhood
    • Contact: Angela 0400749803 or angel dot nail at gmail dot com
    • Who it's for: Parents and kids
  • Barrio la Resistencia
    • Contact: Zane 0401466831 or Simon 0438297552, email simon at cunich dot com dot au
    • Who it's for: In the spirit of Latin America barrios where communities organise for radical social change, this neighbourhood is for members and supporters of Resistance, Socialist Alliance and Green Left Weekly and anyone who wants social change not climate change.
  • South Australia
    • Contact: Caleb 0400224480 or caleb underscore liley at hotmail dot com
    • Who it's for: Mainly people from South Australia
  • Canberra
    • Contact: Leigh - 0421283825, Anne - potentialism at gmail dot com
    • Who it's for: Everyone's welcome.

 

Some more information about neighbourhoods

The neighbourhood or barrio system is based on a successful model developed by popular resistance movements in Latin America.

A neighbourhood is a group of people who camp together. Neighbourhoods are encouraged to share transport to the camp, organise a kitchen for themselves and share cooking and cleaning. There will be a central kitchen purchasing most foods as cheaply as possible, and the raw ingredients will be available to neighbourhood kitchens at cost price. Neighbourhoods are also asked to organise volunteers among themselves for the centrally organised jobs like welcoming arrivals, site building and central kitchen jobs.

Environment centres and other contact points around the country are being asked to take on organising a neighbourhood based on their geographical region. These neighbourhoods will be big (up to 100-150 people) and open to new people to join. You are also welcome to create a neighbourhood along other lines if you feel the camp needs it. See the bottom of this page for a list of neighbourhoods already existing and how to contact them. If you do plan to organise a neighbourhood of your own, you can let us know on the registration page.

For a list of things you may want to think about if you're organising a neighbourhood, click here.

For more action-related decisions, it works better to organise in much smaller groups (say 2-20) that we call Action Teams. See the Action Teams section for more info.

If you do not arrange to be part of a neighbourhood or Action Team before you arrive, that's OK - you will be able to join one when you get there.

The overall camp organising will provide a central kitchen, water, compost toilets, some electricity, meeting spaces, kids' space, first aid, complaints dept, some conflict resolution skills and some entertainment space. If there is something else you think the camp would benefit from, you are encouraged to organise it within your neighbourhood and let us know. This model has been very successful in the past at empowering and inspiring people to create the event they want it to be and avoiding tangles of bureaucracy where they weren't needed.