Pssst… Did you know there is a new anarchist collective in Eugene/Springfield?!
The Neighborhood Anarchist Collective (NAC) strives to grow the anarchist movement through strategic direct action and by providing a welcoming environment for education and participation. We organize locally to help build a society where neighbors support each other to meet basic needs, individuals are free to follow their passions, and empowered communities collectively shape the future.
After a few months of writing documentation and laying a solid foundation, NAC kicked things off by inviting comrades to a potluck where we introduced the structure of the collective and brainstormed about the projects we want to work on together.
There is quite a bit of nuance to the structure and you can read the full document to explore them in depth. Check out the principles of the collective to understand more about what we stand for and why.
The types projects the collective prioritizes:
- Serve and educate the community
- Give people a sense of their own power; and,
- Shift power from government and corporations to people and communities.
Using a fun brainstorming process, we each thought about the projects that we felt would achieve these ends. We then grouped similar projects together until there were a few clear categories of project ideas, and ended with the top three categories as our initial ‘secondary’ projects:
- Resources sharing – Distributed tool and resource sharing project.
- Monthly community gathering – with food, entertainment, free stores, skill shares, and education.
- Transportation safety – such as improving bike lanes.
NAC is designed to be a collective of projects and action. There can be as many active projects as there are groups of people excited to be working on them! Do you want to help work toward any of these projects? Or, do you have an idea for a project that would benefit your community? Join us for one of our General Gatherings at Grower’s Market on the 3rd Sunday of the month from 630-8pm and bring with you your ideas, your enthusiasm, and your desire to affect your community!
NOTE: OUR FIRST GENERAL GATHERING WILL BE ON THE FOURTH SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24.
May Day, or International Workers Day, is an important time of year for Anarchists. It’s the commemoration of the State’s execution of the four Anarchist Haymarket Martyrs and is a day of world wide worker solidarity. For more information please read the IWW’s great explanation of the history and significance of May Day.