Report launch: COVID-19 and Social Movements

In May 2020, we were commissioned by the New Economy Organisers Network (NEON) to produce a report looking at how social movements in the UK are responding to COVID-19. 

This report builds on existing NEON thinking and frameworks looking at how actors from across the housing, migration and climate movements are responding to the coronavirus crisis.  

The report provides an analysis of the insights gathered from interviews we conducted focused primarily on the challenges experienced due to the crisis and ensuing lockdown, the ways in which work shifted, and the opportunities that materialised.  

While movements were impacted differently, all have been hit hard by the pandemic - emotionally, financially, and practically.  There is a critical need for more cross-movement spaces to reflect and formulate new strategies and the report offers a series of questions that those in the NEON community may want to reflect on to help identify and navigate what comes next. 

Our hope is that this report can hold up a mirror to the movement by reflecting on shared trends and emerging needs and that it might encourage collective action around areas of convergence, while providing funders with greater insight that informs how best to support social movements moving forward in light of the crisis and its impacts. 

Here is the link to the report, we hope you find it to be an interesting read. 

Stay tuned for more details on a webinar that will be organised in September to discuss some of the report's findings, answer your questions and reflect on what's next.

This report was funded by the Lankelly Chase Foundation