** Cross-posted from SaferMobile **

This is an exciting time for New Tactics and our partners!  New Tactics will be working with human rights activists in Egypt and Tunisia to develop new resources (new tactics, new notebook, new Arabic website, new translations) and new trainers to learn, apply and further develop the New Tactics methodology, tools and resources in the region.

As we are wrapping up another great year of tactical dialogues, we want to hear your ideas on topics for 2012!  What dialogue topics would you like to see in 2012?  Fundraising?  Strengthening citizen participation? This is your community so please share your ideas so we can start putting them into action!

Where do I begin in thanking our 2010 New Tactics volunteers? It's been another fun year of meeting new people, creating new friendships, learning from the New Tactics online community and lots of work! We worked with a great group of volunteers, interns and fellows that I would like to acknowledge:

As 2010 is coming to an end, I am putting together a few numbers that I think demonstrate the impact of our project this past year - for you, our stakeholders. We cannot thank you enough for sharing your stories, challenges and resources on our website. Your work inspires us everyday. We look forward to continuing to support your human rights efforts in 2011.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that the New Tactics project was mentioned in the Think About It blog.  The post was written by Sylwia Presley who writes about many interesting things having to do with devel

This summer, I've been working with about 8 interns here at the New Tactics project in Minnesota.  We all come together 1-2 times per week in an office space that has been unused for a few months.  It has wifi so it's worked great for us!  The rest of the week, I'm back at my normal office with just a few interns (we have space for two at any given time).  The interns, when they aren't helping me come up with great new ideas for New Tactics, are working on other projects in the community, working part-time jobs, or writing dissertations.  It has been so great working with so many intresting and interested people! 

Anyway, the point of this post is to tell you about a training that I held this morning with the interns.  It seemed that everyone wanted to learn more about Tactical Mapping - and some even want to start facilitating mapping sessions with practitoiners that they know!  So, perhaps by the end of the summer, we'll have a new army of Tactical Mapping trainers ready to go out into the world (or at least the Twin Cities) and facilitate mapping sessions with human rights practitioners!  Interested in having someone walk you thru the process?  Let us know!

Join New Tactics and Jane Barry for an online Tactical Dialogue on Self-Care for Activists: Sustaining Your Most Valuable Resource from September 22 to 28, 2010. 

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on collecting more information on the impact of our Tactical Dialogues.  We have very much enjoyed hosting these monthly online dialogues on interesting topics - and now I'm anxious to know...is it helping?  Is this an important resource for you?

The objectives for each of our Tactical Dialogues are:

1. Share: Participants will share their own approaches (“tactics”) and tools used in their own work so that others may learn.
2. Learn: Participants will learn new approaches (“tactics”) and new tools to apply to their work.
3. Build a network: Participants will meet new people doing similar work that they can someday contact as a resource.

The question is -- are we achieving these objectives?

Are you working to promote, protect or defend your rights and/or the rights of others (elderly, immigrants, refugees, students, those with disabilities, women, children, etc)?  Or, are you interested in getting involved? Yes? GREAT! We want to support your work by introducing you to new ideas, tools, people and tactics!  Come and be inspired and empowered!

Join us for a screening of the film "10 Tactics for Turning Information into Action"!

• When: June 10, 2010 at 7:00 PM (admission is FREE)

• Where: Walter F. Mondale Hall at the University of Minnesota Law School, Room 25

229 19th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Map: http://bit.ly/9zrw9j