Eugene May Day!

We have an amazing line up of workshops this year! Come join us to learn new skills and connect with the community!

Click a workshop title to be taken to the description.

Workshop Descriptions

12pm – 1pm

How to Organize a Tenants Union

Eugene Housing and Neighborhood Defense invites you to learn how to form a tenant’s union. Organizing your neighbors is a crucial step in fighting back against the exploitation that working class tenants face every day, and we have had enough dealing with these leeches! The time is now to learn tips and strategies for taking the fight to them!

Plant Identification

Join for a one-hour overview of the practical and ethical principles of urban foraging, aimed at instilling confidence and purpose in finding your own wild foods. We’ll get acquainted with some of the most common edible plants you can find around Eugene’s neighborhoods and adjacent forests, learn how to use a dichotomous key to safely identify plants or mushrooms, and discuss how foraging can positively impact mental health and food security while fostering deeper connection to our natural environments.

1pm – 1:30pm

Political Prisoner Letter Writing

Join WVAP (Willamette Valley Abolition Project) for a little workshop on letter writing to political prisoners and to discuss why political prisoner support is such a crucial part of any militant liberation movement! And then write a letter with us! We’ll have all the supplies, materials, and importantly information and political education about political prisoners past and present in the US — from political prisoners and prisoners of war in the BPP and BLA to anarchist and environmental militants, and comrades locked up from the George Floyd uprisings and the movement to Stop Cop City.

2pm – 3:30pm

Restorative Justice 101

Laura Diamond and Sophia Solano from Conflict Artistry LLC will offer an overview of some of the values, principles, and elements of Restorative Practices, focusing on the North American context. Then, together we will experience a circle practice around the harms that show up in our communities and how we can move away from a punitive approach to a restorative one. 

Trauma Informed Self Defense

From Autonomy Recovery PDX. All ages trauma informed self defense, masks required and provided.

3:30pm – 4pm

Organizing 101

From ESSN (Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network.) Focusing on union organizing but most of the content will be applicable to general organizing as well.

Healing Circle

Please join certified ancestral healing circle facilitator William Parham and ARDL (Anti-Racist Defense League) in its first Eugene held trauma of capitalism healing circle. This healing circle looks to create a safe space for radicals to come together to vent, share their feelings, and work through some of the trauma that is associated with living in white supremacists capitalist power dynamics.

There will be time to share what we are personally and collectively going through, followed by time to do self care practices that are helpful in relieving and reducing the trauma associated with such events.

Contact workshops@eugenemayday.org with any questions.