How a group organises itself to meet its needs, also in terms of participation

Léo 

Daily life at Ridef.

Interview with Pietro, also a member of the MCE 'instruments of democracy' group.

With some comrades sleeping at the Polideportivo, you proposed a meeting with the Ridef organisation group to seek solutions to some of the problems encountered in running this place, right?

There is a slightly longer chronology.
On the first day, when we were told about the ten o'clock limit for access to the Polideportivo, we immediately asked for an extension on the time because we only found out when we arrived in Oaxaca. Before that we didn't know.
Hence the request for the extension of the time, which then led to eleven o'clock, on the first day.
Then, all these days, we kept asking ourselves what was the best strategy to extend it further, initially talking among ourselves and there were very different positions even, to a point.
Those who wanted to be, let's say, more rutual, more confrontational, talked about speaking directly on stage, at the microphone and saying this. Others, on the other hand, proposed a collection of signatures of all the people in the Polideportivo to make our voice heard. The third position, which was the one we actually followed, was to seek an informal dialogue with the people in the Polideportivo to see if this demand was general, if it was a common demand and it was indeed so.

We started out in a group, and then we talked to various people in the Polideportivo to try both to broaden the group and to see if we were the only ones who wanted this. And we found several other people who agreed with us.
In addition, when we talked to other people, they told us of further problems: cleaning the dormitories, providing soap, toilet paper in the bathrooms. All these points could be discussed during the meeting with the organising group.
Later, again informally, we identified a person from the organising committee. We asked her for this extension.
We also tried to address our requests directly to the caretaker on site, but he told us that he had no power to act and that we should go to a higher level.
On the day we asked for it, several times a response was delayed until, in the evening, at a point when we were quite unnerved by the fact that we were not receiving a response, we made it known, somewhat heatedly, that we demanded a response.
So we said we couldn't talk to just one person.
The next day, we had this committee, which we did.

Was there therefore a lack of a tool to enable dialogue between Ridef participants and the organising group?

Yes, let's say that this question, for many of us in the original group, Italian for the most part, stems from the fact that, to a point, many of us are part of the "democracy" group of the MCE (Freinet pedagogy in Italy), which is very focused on instruments for participation and expression, and many of us have participated in various stages in institutional pedagogy (IP) where the focus on roles is very high.
And the roles are, in moi aviso, in line with this current, a necessary function to make the group stratify, articulate, organise itself with very clear things.
And then they are things that are done in a participatory manner.
At the start of a PI stage, the first thing you do is you identify the responsibilities that you feel are needed.
Usually the organising committee already makes a list of responsibilities, but the collective, the group, can propose further roles and they are assigned in a cooperative manner, to a point, so the organisers only have an initial role in starting the work.
But later, also to facilitate the success and work of the organising committee, this delegation work is done.
Then, in institutional pedagogy there are belts, levels whereby certain roles that are perhaps complicated and require specific knowledge are relegated to people who already have experience. But here we get into details that perhaps do not interest us.
But this idea, to a point, of having a clear idea of who does what is, in my opinion, an element of peace of mind for the people who participate, because they know who to look for if they need something, when they can do it, if it is planned, in what place and with whom.
This, I think, has to mirror the work that is done in the classroom because it is if the student does not know when to rest, who to tell when he has a problem, if something is wrong, that is, he gets frustrated and then he does those things that we consider problematic, I don't know, he leaves the classroom, he throws things on the floor, he shouts, all those things that humans do when they are frustrated.

Do you have any idea how this concern could be addressed in this type of event such as Ridef?

I think more or less in the same way as you do in other stage-type events, with a nice big poster where you write down the responsibilities and then people propose themselves and write their names on it.
When you present the programme, you identify time slots within which you can address these people: meeting who and when.