Why is advocacy or social action important?
Prepared for Thunder Bay Panel on Social Action Cathy Crowe, June 2, 2006 In a healthy community, social action promotes the values of social justice and human rights. Individual and systemic advocacy are the tools and the means for social action that is activism. Activists, as individuals and as part of organized movements, have always led social change. The idea that it is wrong to discriminate against someone based on the colour of their skin is now common sense, but it was a fight that took well over 300 years and that fight continues. The idea that it is wrong to discriminate against women is also common sense, but that fight took well over 100 years and that fight continues. The idea that it is wrong to discriminate against someone based on their poverty or their circumstance is no less an equally common sense idea, but recent history would suggest that we could be losing that fight. Why is advocacy often treated with suspicion and mistrust? Advocacy has become a dirty word and a
