Who we are

Fireweed is a collective of activist trainers in Denmark, Sweden and Norway (Finland pending). Founded in 2015, then as part of the climate justice movement, we now aim to strengthen all Nordic movements for liberation and justice by providing tools and skills to individuals and groups within those movements through participatory, empowering and liberatory trainings .

We value the diversity in practices, styles and approaches to trainings that stem from the different backgrounds and life experiences of our trainers. Internally, we strive for a healthy group culture; having fun, being kind, open, honest and trusting with each other as people, comrades and co-trainers. This is also reflected in our trainings, and we are often told that seeing the care we show each other creates safety for the participants as well.

In summary, a “Fireweed training” is not one thing. However, the next section describes some of what ties us together across our differences.

What we do and how

➤ Grassroots organising: The movement is an ecosystem

We are part of the landscape of grassroots organising in the Nordics. With our trainings, we try to facilitate learning, connections and networks across movements and borders. Our trainers are actively engaged in different types of grassroots organising, and our work is informed by the different movements’ developments and needs.

➤ Participatory culture and leaderful movements

One of our main motivations is to enable the sharing of knowledge within and across movements. We trust in the knowledge of the participants in the room and see it as our role as facilitators to create a space for collectively sharing, learning, unlearning and reflecting. We believe in trainings as a tool to even out power, allowing more people to grow the knowledge and capacity needed to take on different roles and responsibilities in organising. We work to build the confidence to take initiative and act - to build leaderful movements.

➤ Accessibility & intersectionality

We try to make our trainings as accessible as possible. We strive to accommodate various physical and mental abilities, food restrictions and take precautions to avoid spreading illness. All of our trainings have been donation-based (so far) and we cover food and travel costs when we have the means. But since our means are limited, we cannot always offer full accessibility.

In the design, facilitation and participant selection for our trainings, we attempt to counter oppressive societal structures (such as racism, colonialism, capitalism, ableism, patriarchy and the list goes on), but with the awareness that we all grew up within them and it is a continuous process of unlearning. We always welcome feedback and suggestions on how to improve all aspects of accessibility in our trainings.

➤ Experiential and experimental

In our trainings, we often focus on learning through experience, practice and play. Alongside more conventional learning methods, we use games, body work, role play, and practical exercises. We believe in the power of learning by doing. To do that well, we continuously re-visit training programs and materials after feedback from past participants and fellow Fireweed trainers, experiment with new materials and methods, and participate in trainings ourselves.

➤ Courage & joy as a driving force

In our dystopian realities, we see the very real need for fighting doomism with courage and joy. We wish to practice our imagination and dreaming muscles collectively to build something better together.