Background

In Serbia there is an ongoing crisis of air pollution. A large  portion of power generation and heating comes from plants  that run on coal. Serbia has significant deposits of coal, but  most of it is low grade lignite. 

It is cheaper than coal, but when  burned, it releases large amounts of pollutants into the air with  severe effects on the health of the population, including on  cardiovascular, respiratory and cerebrovascular diseases. Between 2020 and 2021, the organization Serbia on the Move  led a campaign titled “Sign, Breathe” to raise awareness of air  pollution in Serbia and gather 30 000 signatures to propose  a law to ban the sale of raw, low-quality lignite in Serbia. The  campaign was done in partnership with Taraba, an organization  using digital technologies to support community initiatives. 

Organizing process:

The campaign started with zero budget and a team of 10 local  leaders trained as organizers at the Leadership, Organizing  and Action course at the Harvard School of Government  who provided support and training to volunteers during the  campaign. They researched measures that would affect the degree of air  pollution and formulate demands. They published an online  petition to identify interest and gather support for the demand  to propose a law to ban the sale of low quality lignite in Serbia.  They organized local leaders and national networks forming a  leadership structure using the organizing snowflake model when  new volunteers were engaged in the campaign. They used one to-one conversations to expand the structure, grow the number  of campaign teams, and develop leadership. This allowed them tm submit letters to government institutions and to write the  text of the people’s initiative in consultation with the community  and organizing communities to build support for the people’s  initiative. They also used social networks as a channel to give visibility to  the campaign and communicate with like minded citizens and  potential volunteers, putting out an open call for volunteers and  organizations to join the campaign. They organized trainings in  community organizing for volunteers and partner organizations.  Finally, after much work they presented the text and signatures  of the people’s initiative to the National Assembly advocating  to put the text of the initiative on the agenda of the National  Assembly. 

Outcomes:

• Gathered over 26 000 signatures for an online petition,  mostly by using social networks. 
• 200 volunteers and 10 organizations responded to the  call join the campaign 
• 100 volunteers were trained in community organizing 
• Most of the organizations involved in the campaign  decided to use the community organizing methodology in  their organizations to a different degree. 
• Leading Media outlets covered the issue and the  campaign 
• The Ministry of Energy called the campaign  representatives to schedule a meeting with one of the State  secretaries for energetics and develop a plan on how to  collaboratively tackle the issue in the future. 

Lessons learned:

• Despite succeeding in organizing volunteers and  gathering signatures in support of the people’s initiative, the  campaign needed to devote more attention to figuring out  how to relate meaningfully to the local elections that were  happening at the same time and the debates that citizens  and candidates were having. The issue of air pollution was  framed in a non-partisan way, to avoid being “too political”  and it ended up being ignored in political debates, sidelined  by media and among people. This prevented the campaign  from staying relevant during elections and from building  enough power to get the National Assembly to prioritize the  issue in their agenda. 
• Organizers should relate elections as “planned crises”  that change conditions in the socio-political context and  affect communities and citizens with whom we organize.  Therefore, organizers need to plan and respond to electionsin our contexts by “make meaning” and framing the issue  in a way that is relevant to voters and candidates during  elections, and in ways that build power to win our demands. 

Source

ECON (2023). Organizing in Crisis: A curriculum for community organizers. CC-BY NC-SA 4.0.