The Alliance is Australia’s first attempt at the kind of broad-scale community organising pioneered by American organiser Saul Alinksy and his Industrial Areas Foundation and made famous in recent times by US President Barack Obama, among others.
Two thousand people attended the Sydney Alliance Founding Assembly at Sydney Town Hall on September 15 last year. It is a truly diverse coalition – 50 organisations strong – from groups as small as local church congregations and small community groups plus unions and large organisations like the Cancer Council and the St Vincent de Paul Society.
The SSH distribution area falls within the Alliance’s Inner South and East District. On that extraordinarily wet Tuesday a few weeks ago in June, 20 representatives of local member organisations braved Sydney’s stormy weather and gathered at Surry Hills to plan events for the area over the following month.
“Any membership-based organisations committed to the Sydney Alliance values are welcome to join. We are non-partisan and secular. We are focussed on issues not personalities and work to build power and take real action rather than protest. We use relationships not megaphones,” said Amanda Tattersall, Sydney Alliance coalition director.
Fundamental to the Alliance’s way of doing community building is developing and nurturing of relationships between groups while recognising that the partner organisations have their own interests. The local district’s next gathering will be on Tuesday July 17, where the focus will be on getting to know each other and building relationships that will underpin work. You can expect to leave energised by the passions of the people you will meet and their stories that provide context for why we are all involved.
