LOALC Brings the “Stop Prawer Plan” Case Study to Japan’s Climate Organizer Program

The Liberation Organizing Action Learning Circle (LOALC) is a member-led global group of tiny-revolution organizers committed to building intentional relationships, recognizing power, and creating a kinder, just world in the service of our shared struggle for liberation, with the Palestinian cause as our compass. We are LCN members who show up for each other, share experiences, learn together, and support our communities and networks in anti-colonial and anti-neoliberal work.

One of our strategies in 2025 was to create a strong community organizing case study on Palestine with a toolkit on how to use it to teach the People, Power, Change framework. We set a goal of at least four trainings in the LCN universe to use this case study by the end of the year, and in doing so, encourage other Leading Change trainers to also communicate around and engage with Palestine and liberation struggles in a more open, visible manner.

We chose the Stop Prawer Plan campaign that stopped an Israeli bill to usurp 800 square kilometers of land from Palestinian Bedouins in 2013. We created a set of strategy teaching slides using this campaign (given that strategy is one of the core leadership practices of our framework). In the process of creating this toolkit, we met with Zaid Shuaibi, one of the organizers in the campaign, and Reem Manna, the Executive Director of Ahel, which ran organizing workshops for the organizers in the Prawer campaign.

We piloted using the Stop Prawer Plan to teach strategy in an online full-day workshop at the Climate Organizer Program (KIKOOP) at Community Organizing Japan on July 12th. Eight participants from three teams launching campaigns to improve climate policies in their municipality joined five coaches and trainers in a cozy and interactive full-day training.

The lead trainer, Haruka Sano, reflects that talking with people who were organizing on the ground during the Prawer campaign enabled her to teach the strategy using this case study through telling the story from the organizers’ perspectives, which made the teaching more engaging and credible.

The most hopeful outcome was hearing a lot of interest in the Stop Prawer Plan campaign and in Palestine. After the workshop concluded, 5-6 participants remained and asked questions around further resources to learn about Palestine, the reality of strategizing under occupation, and the connection between the climate crisis and colonialism.

Haruka was initially concerned that using the campaign to teach organizing might make the People, Power, Change framework feel unfamiliar and distant for them because it is not local in Japan, nor is it about climate organizing. Contrary to these concerns, participants were excited to learn  a framework that has been used around the world in recent years, especially in Palestine. 

One of the participants reflected in the evaluation survey after the workshop: 

“The plus was that a Palestinian case was used. Right now, even worse, extremely horrible things are happening there, and I want to think further about what I can do about this issue, too.” (パレスチナの例が取り上げられたこと。いまさらに本当にひどいことが起きていて、この問題についても自分も何かできないか考えていきたいと思った。)

One of the coaches also shared that they  “learned that community organizing was practiced in the ongoing big social issue of Israel-Palestine, and realized that it was a skill that is helpful to use on the ground.” (今ある大きな社会問題であるイスラエル・パレスチナ問題にCOが実践されていたことを知り、現場で使えるスキルであることが実感できました。)

Overall, the pilot teaching of the Stop Prawer Plan campaign case study in the workshop in Japan in July was a success in bringing attention to Palestine and encouraging participants and coaches to take action in solidarity with Palestine. LOALC  is looking forward to enabling more trainers to use this case study in upcoming workshops around the world and developing more case studies of building people power from liberation movements globally.