The action camp was a huge success!

While Ford gets stuck in neutral in breaking their promise to build more hybrids, the Jumpstart Ford team was training 100 organizers and activist with the Ruckus Society, Global Exchange, Energy Action Coalition, Oil Change International and others. The camp brought together frontline communities, peak oil activist, campus organizers, skilled professionals, climate change radicals and others together in breaking our addiction to oil.

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Camp Highlights

1. Panel Discussions

2. Challenging Corporate Power

3. Closing the Camp with a Action

Panel Discussions

Working across campaigns and drawing connections to the chain of oil destruction was a key component of the camp. So, the invitation to organizers working on post-Katrina New Orleans, refinery impacts in Texas, dirty coal impacts in Arizona, indigenous rights work in Canada, challenging global climate change and getting a grasp on peak oil perspectives, offered everyone at the camp with great insights. Here is the list of the panel discussion and sessions.

Oil, Climate and Dirty Energy Impacts

**Michelle Shin, Program Coordinator, Common Ground Collective Lower 9th Ward Project, New Orleans, Louisiana, http://www.commongroundrelief.org/.

**Suncere Shakur, Community Organizer, Common Ground Collective, New Orleans, Louisiana, http://www.commongroundrelief.org/.

**Wahleah Johns, Executive Director, Black Mesa Water Coalition, Arizona, http://www.blackmesawatercoalition.org/.

**Denny Larson, National Coordinator for Refinery Reform Campaign & Director of the Global Community Monitor, San Francisco, CA, http://www.gcmonitor.org/.

**Elaine Alexi, member of the Tetlit Gwichin First Nation, Fort McPherson, Northwest Territory, Canada, http://www.deneyouthalliance.ca/.

Peak Oil Perspective

**Megan Quinn, Program Coordinator, Community Solutions, Yellow Springs, Ohio, http://www.communitysolution.org/.

Campaign Strategy

**Arthur Coulston, Webmaster, Campus Climate Challenge, Energy Action Coalition, Washington, DCwww.energyaction.net.

**Susan, Separation from Oil and State, Oil Change International, Washington, DC, http://priceofoil.org/.

**Nile Malloy, Zero Emissions Organizer, Jumpstart Ford, Rainforest Action Network, San Francisco, CA, http://www.jumpstartford.com.

**Mike Hudema, Oil Independence Director, Global Exchange, San Francisco, CA, www.globalexchange.org.

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Challenging Corporate Power

If you ever wanted to see how a few people could do some theatre around corporate power, then you don’t have to look any further. Mike Hudema, Global Exchange and Nile Malloy, Rainforest Action Network facilitated a training during their presentation of the Jumpstart Ford Campaign. The images below is part of a series of interactive, cooperative and participatory theatre activities of the “Theatre of the Oppressed” created by Brazilian activist and educator, Augusto Boal in the 1970’s. Check out how corporate power really looks like.

Closing the Camp with a Bang!

The coolest thing about the Ruckus action camp is that participants gained all these organizing and activists tools. For the last day of the camp we all had to put these skills into "real" action. At past action camps, a real action was organized against a big corporate target, but this year trainers organized a mock action on one of the dirtiest projects in the world, the Alberta Tar Sands. Dubbed "The Saudi Arabia of the North," the Tar Sands is buried under an area of wild boreal forests, caribou habitat, and First Nations territory in Northern Alberta the size of the state of Florida. Check out how participants, trainers, kitchen staff and others got down in the scenario!