Welcome to MOBILISE

We don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, but we really think you should know something. We are staring at the end of the world as we know it.

If you don’t know which “world” we’re referring to then you might be on the wrong website. We’re talking about free education, affordable housing, quality healthcare and welfare benefits. The building blocks of a fairer society. If you don’t save it, nobody else will.

UNISON campaigns for quality public services funded by fair taxation. Sustaining that requires as to engage in the fight of our lives – not just as public sector workers but as members of the community campaigning alongside friends, family, colleagues, and neighbours.

So, If you reckon those are principles are worth fighting for, and you’re up for doing something about it, then MOBILISE is the event for you.

At UNISON we use MOBILISE events to equip our members for the campaign. Given the scale of the challenge we face we’re opening the event up to anyone who shares our goals.

So what’s involved?

We think there’s more to campaigning than making a placard and marching to the town hall. All through history, strong campaigns have fired imaginations and brought the creativity of campaigners to the fore through song, theatre, humour, film and more. In the age of the internet, creative campaigning has moved to a new level with campaign bloggers, viral videos and internet chat.

Forget about UN sanctions or the trade embargo, the Arab uprisings show it’s a Facebook campaign you need if you want to dump a despot.

With all that firmly in mind, we are organising a small festival to celebrate creative campaigning in the internet age. But we do things a little differently – we blur the line between the audience and the performer. At the MOBILISE festival artists and activists come together to share different skills in pursuit of a common goal. Whether you go to workshops on song writing, film making, comedy or art, we hope you create something – individually or as a group. On stage, on screen or out on the street we are looking for people to deploy their creative skills.

MOBILISE art is rough and ready. It needs to be. Don’t be disappointed to find its not a master class in fine art. No one’s going home from the MOBILISE festival with a BAFTA or a Grammy. You’ll get a mug or a Tee shirt if you’re lucky because we don’t care about the skill you were born with, we’re interested in what you do with what you’ve got.

So browse the site, book an event and join the struggle.

Peter Hunter
UNISON