Background

The Polish city of Chorzów used to be one of the most important industrial centers in the Silesian region, which itself has played an outsized role in the economic strength of Poland. However, over the last two decades, the industrial fortunes of the region have reversed as coal and heavy industries have contracted and shut down.

The organizing process in Chorzów started out of a recognition of a problem: representation of women in most of the influential organizations in the area was quite low, despite the fact that demographically there are more women in the region than men. Civil society was quite underdeveloped, with the most influential local group being the fan club of the Ruch Chorzów football team. This, combined with the economic decline of the area, opened up a number of organizing opportunities.

 Organizing process:

This organizing campaign began on a “green pasture” in the sense that the organizer began outreach in the area using various methods of both a place-based and feminist organizing approaches to identify an initial group infrastructure or relationships existed. The organizer, used as her guide to this work an understanding of the basics of an organizing cycle which included: 1) listening, including through door-to-door outreach and meeting with existing local groups, 2) looking for common issues between different groups, 3) seeking to build a campaign around a shared issue, and 4) building lasting organization led by local leaders.

Outcomes:

The key outcomes of the organizing process were the following:

The women leaders of the initiative organised a women’s conference which activated a group of local women leaders who remain active to this day.

• A local leadership group was formed that crossed boundaries that were otherwise polarizing the broader political discourse in Poland.
• Several of the members of the local leadership group openly identified with the Polish Women’s Strike movement, while others openly opposed it. Yet through the organizing process, they were able to find common ground.
• The participants in this organizing process all shared a sense of common identity as women in this region, with one of the group leaders commenting to our researcher, “We show that you can have different views, but still, we can act together.”
• Some of the local leaders developed interest in building political power for women in the region, with one leader of the group saying, “My goal is to inspire women to act and to go into politics.” 
• The leadership group is looking at advancing an effort to ask the city government to create a women’s affairs commission that advises the city council.

Lessons learned:

This organizing effort was only partially realized and there was unevenness in the outcomes. What was learned was that due to some elements of the diversity of the group, the organizer was not able to integrate different sets of concerns with the larger group, and the effort to bring in additional leaders from this district was unsuccessful.

Even after the organizer left due to a lack of funding, the group of local leaders  had developed the capacity and motivation to continue meeting, self-organizing, and taking common actions.