Ukrainians Boston🇺🇦

Rally Replicator

by Ukrainians@MIT

ukrainiansboston@gmail.com

Please use as a reference, apply to YOUR university, suggest improvements to the guide.

How to Start a Rally in 5 Easy Steps:

        Preface: As of writing this document, we began organizing for the Ukrainian relief effort 4 days ago having started with very minimal experience in organizing these kinds of events. Nonetheless, having determination to do everything we can, understanding our place in society and our ability to have substantive impact over the eventual outcome, we tried and have been incredibly successful. Though it may seem daunting and overwhelming,  I promise it is both possible and easy, and you can do it too.

Here are the 5 steps:

  1. Team Up
  2. Pick the message
  3. Pick the place
  4. Advertise
  5. Plan the Event

        We will detail these steps next.

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   1. Team Up

        When deciding to organize, finding other interested people is key to running a smooth operation. Clearly communicating and delegating tasks will ensure that all aspects of the project are accounted for and executed properly. A core principle of this movement is togetherness. We work significantly better, more efficient, and stronger when we work together. Doing this is only easy if you give yourself the right tools to make it so.

Fortunately, if you are reading this, you currently have access to a team! The MIT students organizing Ukrainians Boston are here to support you, provide you all the resources you need, and help you with anything – brainstorming, organizing, reliable information, etc. We work stronger together, so we are here to make sure this is easy for you, and can also work to help connect you with people in most cases – especially local Ukrainians.  

Putting together a team may seem challenging. If you’re not sure where to start, look in your area for local organizing groups that could already be mobilizing or have potential to mobilize. If there is something going on, contact them to see if there is anything you can do to help and through them find other contacts to build your team. Teams can consist of friends, family, and even neighbors. It can also be a bunch of people you’ve never met before in your life.

Finally, find your local Ukrainians! They are fully devoted to this effort and will provide valuable insight, reliable information, and likely will have communication with others in organizing groups (including ours). If you are having trouble finding a team, find some Ukrainians and your team is built.

     2. Pick the Message

        When deciding to organize, you’ll then need a message. Fortunately, we have created and gathered the resources and rhetoric for you to structure that message! (We said we’d make it easy!)

        

        The message is relatively simple. Russian aggression against Ukraine is an aggression against all. This is not about politics, it is about securing world peace, sovereignty, and human rights. What we learn is that independence is difficult… but not impossible. The freedom fighters on the ground in Ukraine are buying time while the diaspora, in collaboration with the international community, are able to put enough pressure so that Russians themselves call for the end to the aggression (and many certainly have been!). These are the very tangible three avenues people can take to make sure this happens, and depending on your regional situation certain avenues could be more important than others.

  1. Email and call local representatives demanding urgent help
  2. Email and contact business demanding they stop trade and services to Russia
  3. Email and call on your academic institutions to make public statements and cut projects associated with Russia

        These are the simplest terms by which people can actually take something away they can do. These are consistent regardless of the evolving situation, and the specific demands within each avenue will be updated on the resources and links we give you. The next step would be to have templates available for people to use. Fortunately, these have been created and I will proceed to link all those resources!

                Messaging resources:

  • Help Ukraine Global linktree for Templates and Most Action Items including more details than listed above, and RELIABLE INFO
  • Ukrainians Boston linktree
  • Effective Rally Chants developed by Ukrainians Boston
  • #StandWithUkraine, a comprehensive list of action items and resources

     3. Pick the Place

        Now that you have the idea and the team, you’ll just need to choose your location. This should really be the easiest part. As this is a global conflict, there is already an assumption that rallies and protests will happen to elevate the public conscious, so you can really go anywhere. Public locations that can hold big crowds and that have substantial traffic are preferable for many reasons. The whole point is get eyes on the issue and give people tangible, easy things they can do to help. You also likely will not need to get ‘permission’ to demonstrate in public locations, especially in front of government buildings. In either case, don’t let ‘permission’ stop you from holding an event where you think it’d be best suited. For example, we’re holding events in the public spaces of universities such as Harvard, MIT, and the State House of Boston. It’s pretty simple, just pick your place with your team and put it on a poster.

     4. Advertisement

        Now it is time to put your ideas and place on a poster and get people to your event! Eyes and media coverage are the name of the game. Here are a few steps to ensure you are successful in these goals.

  1. Make a flier or other form of notifying document
  1. You can use Ukrainian colors and other provocative messaging to 1.) make sure people understand what it is about, and 2.) want to come
  1. Create a facebook event and invite lots of people
  1. Send it to all your friends, have them post it on their pages. What we have found incredibly helpful is getting in contact with people who have access to large groups of people, whether it be through a group chat or other form of grouping, and asking them to express their support and share the info. Other organizing groups will be very helpful in publicizing your events.
  1. Create a linktree and any other easy way by which people can access the information you provide them
  1. Instagram, email, and phone number also recommended
  1. Contact local media and press
  1. One of the primary goals is to get media attention – it shows international support and further pressures the respective groups to take action. It may be more difficult at the first event to get substantial media, but you will certainly attract some, and as events progress more and more will come to see what is going on. The news is looking for clicks, so if there is something associated with the ‘big commotion’, they will be there.
  1. Print posters and put them in strategic locations
  1. Give these posters out to friends and family, neighbors, and other community members. Ask them as well to perhaps give some out to their friends and neighbors. You also can poster in different locations. If the posters use the colors of the Ukrainian flag, they will be very identifiable in large quantities even in someone’s periphery and eventual subconscious memory of spaces they’ve traversed.
  1. Don’t be scared of being obnoxious
  1. You have liberty to be ‘obnoxious’ when there are war crimes to stand up against. Putin is lying, the Russians are targeting not just military bases. They are targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure, and killing children and the elderly. It is not obnoxious to care and support these issues, it is correct and right.

     5. Plan the Event

        You’ve already set yourself up for success! You’ve got a team, sorted your messaging, picked an amazing place, and secured people for your event. Now you need to plan it. You may be asking yourself – “Wasn’t this supposed to be easy?” Well, we’ve made it as easy as possible. Within this section, we will link you to our rally schedule example that we’ve put together that comprehensively explains all the issues and gives people tangible actionables, as well as rally chants that will surely get the crowd riled up. I will also include a list of supplies that will be helpful for making the protest effective, as well as some tips for managing the event.

        

  • Rally schedule example
  • Rally chants
  • Useful supplies
  • Megaphone
  • You need people to hear your front person and the speakers
  • Walkie-Talkies
  • Useful for communicating with your team at the rally on the ground and spreading out when the crowd is really big to have the most influence over their energy
  • Flags, Posters, Signs, Markers
  • SO SO SO important! These are necessary to create the environment for the protest and for pictures media will take. Making signs can be time consuming. If you make it a community event, you will both get engagement and have a higher production of signs (include free food, we can maybe help with that!). Please reach out for us to send you pictures of signs.
  • Also make sure to have a thick drawing pad and some markers so people can make signs ‘on-the-go’ at the rally itself
  • Tips/Rules of the Road
  • Marching is amazing and incredibly effective for getting the attention of people. Marching even a small distance allows you to walk through traffic and speaks to a lot of people who were otherwise apathetic. You will see more people come to future events when you march. Do this at some point during your rally, we’ve done it effectively at the end after getting everyone ready.
  • Use chants, hype up the crowd, and get them used to listening for chants from the beginning. Energy is created when everyone works in sync, and chanting gives them the tools to create that energy. Provide them with reference sheets for the chants if you would like. Make sure to give them some rest time between bits of chanting. Use the megaphone for this.
  • Spread out throughout the crowd and use your walkie-talkies to communicate with your team and control the energy.
  • Practice your rhetoric with your team casually
  • Find photographers to take pictures
  • If you have Ukrainians there, let them do their thing when the time calls for it. They have Ukrainian chants that are incredibly powerful and having been directly affected by the aggression have a lot of energy ready to be rechanneled into making noise and being angry
  • Be mindful with the megaphone. You need to gain confidence with your crowd. Don’t do too much to let them down or too little to not get them energized at all. Be balanced, precise, and relatable.
  • Leave room for people to tell their stories between times of agitation. You can have some planned, and also have a point person that you announce at the beginning where people can go to say they want to queue up to give a story. Perhaps ask a bit about what they’d like to talk about and who they are to best position them in the presentation order.
  • Use the “Slava Ukraini! - Heroyam Slava!” to close out chants and pivot to next topics and chants
  • Decentralization vs Centralization: Strike a balance between letting people do their own thing, showing the collective frustration, while also introducing structure with a front person who can help guide the crowd. It has been better to not overdo that.
  • Please use the megaphone properly… Practice makes perfect. Make sure the crowd can hear anyone who is speaking and don’t feel bad to help someone use the megaphone properly.
  • Listen to your team if you are the front person. You may miss some things, and it is important to be flexible to be most effective.
  • Take all interviews possible
  • When people show support, don’t keep them in that narrow space, give them tools by which they can help and exchange contact info wherever possible
  • Deliver your message/rhetoric clearly and effectively
  • Face paint is cool too!
  • Be as respectful and clear as possible when dealing with possible issues. Contextualize the issue so people understand why it is important that you are doing this.

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Conclusion

        Congratulations! You’ve officially organized an effective rally! Feel free to contact us anytime if you have any questions and so we can also help you organize! You are not alone. Only together can we end authoritarianism and imperialism. The collective international voice is powerful.

        Further, you are awesome! Have confidence in yourself, because you can do it! Your work and involvement matters and you will see it has very tangible results. Don’t be afraid to iterate. Every event we have hosted has taught us more and every time has been better than the last. We went from an events of 50-200 people to events of 5000 within the span of days. Regardless of whether the events are big or small, your actions have great impact in this unprecedented moment. You absolutely got this. We absolutely got this. Together we will defend Ukraine and change the world.

Слава Україні

Slava Ukraini

-Ukrainians Boston🇺🇦

Other types of events:

  • Free food events where people can email and call representatives, businesses, and academic institutions
  • Aid brainstorming sessions
  • Community poster-making sessions
  • Literally anything else, we’re only bounded by our imagination