On 7 July, UNA-UK brought together over 100 of its most active members and supporters from across the country to share their ideas and campaigning strategies on how to shape a 'Global Britain'.
The conference centred around UNA-UK's ‘Keeping Britain Global' campaign which evaluates the UK's performance based on policy areas in which the UK can make a useful contribution at a global level.
From UN peacekeeping to "killer robots", UNA-UK identified key areas where the UK has the opportunity to show leadership and which contain potential for local and national advocacy work. With the help of policy experts and professional campaigners, participants zoomed in on one specific policy area to come up with practical campaign plans for local action to take forward in their own communities.
Discover campaign actions generated on the day
During the day
The event featured presentations from UNA-UK's local activists and speeches from Jeremy Gilley, founder of Peace One Day, Natalie Samarasinghe, UNA-UK's Executive Director, Ben Donaldson, UNA-UK's Head of Campaigns, and Laurel Hart, UNA-UK's Outreach & Campaigns Officer.
Jeremy Gilley, founder of Peace One Day, gave the keynote address, sharing his story of how he established the organisation Peace One Day to document his efforts to create the first ever annual ceasefire and day of global non-violence. He went on to share advice on how to go about taking campaigns to the next level using his four pillars of successful campaigning:
- Have an idea: you must have a vision of what you want to achieve
- Choose your audience: try to engage all sectors of society
- Funding: money helps
- Generate awareness: share your campaign across all online and offline platforms
Participants were then introduced to some of UNA-UK's local activists and grassroots campaigners who talked about their local work to drive forward UNA-UK's campaigns. Participants were then tasked with crafting a campaign plan on one specific policy area. Participants had one hour to generate ideas before pitching their campaign back to the conference. They were then given the opportunity to commit to taking forward their favourite campaign action in their communities.
The conference closed with updates from the UNA-UK team including on our urgent campaign to find the best High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Visit this link for more on UNA-UK's 'Keeping Britain Global' campaign
Photo credit: Alfie Jenkins, UNA-UK volunteer