VOLUME 30 , NUMBER 7 July/August 1999
How to plan your own rally for student recognition
Nita Winter
By organizing rallies, students say they raise community awareness of the services they provide and the need to support these services.
Why should stu-dents organize a political rally to seek more training support? It's simple, says Gilbert Newman, PhD, the organizer of San Francisco's recent "Psychology Graduate Student Day": Large numbers of people speaking out attract attention from local media, community leaders and politicians.
And, adds Newman, planning an advocacy event isn't hard if you know where to start and where to find help.
He offers some advice:
Determine your constituency--Figure out who you want to be there and what date and time will draw the largest numbers. Newman's target audience was students, trainers and politicians, and midday Friday best-suited local politicians' schedules.
Develop a coordinating committee--Organize a group of trainers and students to divvy up such planning tasks as designing flyers and writing letters and press releases. Newman's group met once a week in the months before the rally.
Seek funding--Ask area businesses and nonprofit groups for assistance. Newman landed a $3,000 grant from an area foundation supporting grassroots efforts. Businesses donated food and bottled water.
Visit politicians--Catch legislators at local functions and urge them to attend. The politicians that came to Newman's rally were the ones he met with personally. Also offer help to politicians' aides by providing speaking points. You want the politicians to make statements that support your agenda and also appeal to their prospective voters.
Launch a publicity campaign--Send letters and place phone calls to mayors, city supervisors, state senators, staff of local health-service agencies and others you want to reach. Newman's organizing team also sent students and agency personnel template letters--fully written letters requiring only a signature--for them to forward to politicians and city administrators. And they sent press releases to radio stations and newspapers. Most effective in rousing rally participation, though, was passing flyers out to people at area campuses, says Newman.
--B. Murray
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