“…Nothing can be changed until it is faced”
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”
James Baldwin
Act Now - a people-powered campaigning community for Northern Ireland - launched online back in March. As Covid19 hit our shores, many of us felt powerless as our lives were turned upside down.
But in the days and weeks since, even when things were at their worst, Act Now members acted to protect each other.
Thousands of us forced big corporate Randox to work with the NHS and stop selling their Covid19 tests privately at £120 a go. We called the First and Deputy First Minister to put pressure on them to act - and just days later Randox made a U-turn and announced that they would be working with the NHS.
When we were all asked to stay at home for the safety of our communities, no provision was made for women and pregnant people in need of abortion care. Travel was still necessary to access abortion appointments, even though travel had become practically impossible. We emailed Health Minister Robin Swann in droves - and he announced he would allow health and social care settings to offer abortion care up to 10 weeks.
This pandemic has thrown the need for protecting our planet and the people who live on it into razor sharp focus. In September over five hundred of us emailed Fermanagh and Omagh District Council in just a few hours - and got protection from fracking back into the Local Development Plan. We’re setting up a fighting fund to ensure we can move quickly against the powerful corporations who want to frack our land for an easy profit.
And that’s not all. We supported Action for Muckamore in their campaign for a public inquiry into abuse at Muckamore Abbey Hospital. We supported the Quaker Youth Service and called for mental health provision in schools to be monitored. And we stood squarely behind the Black Lives Matter protestors in the face of unfair policing from PSNI.
If this crisis has shown us anything, it’s that the systems that govern our lives can be quickly changed. And despite the constant attempts here to divide us, the reality is that we need each other more than ever.
There’s never been a movement in Northern Ireland like Act Now. Since we launched our community has quadrupled in size. We’re putting power to make progressive change into the hands of everyday people. And it’s already clear what we can achieve together.
