Decolonise SYG | September Newsletter
Dearest reader,
Welcome to our first ever newsletter! We’ll be dropping this on the website and into the inboxes of members at the end of every month so that you can get your monthly dose of SYG news and opportunities, with a splash of feelgood news for the times. We’ve done a lot since you elected your new Council (including a record number of women and nonbinary people) at our AGM in July (our biggest ever, by the way 😏). This is a reel of the most up-to-date highlights.
Take Action: Help us Decolonise SYG
SYG strives to be an intersectional feminist and antiracist organisation, but we know we can do a lot better. We are looking to carry out anti-oppression work within the organisation to make us more diverse, inclusive, and representative of Scottish young people. This should be a long process of change within the organisation, but it starts with the simple step of understanding our own members.
So we can do this, please fill out our diversity measurement survey now, and give us feedback on how we can be more inclusive. This is a small step, but a necessary one.
Working Groups Launched
Over recent weeks, we have launched two new working groups! Our 15-person strong Events & Fundraising Working Group had its first meeting last week and will be working on an ambitious series of events for November - keep your 👀 peeled. The Elections & Campaigns Working Group has 10 members and will be working on a campaign to improve healthcare for trans people. Big things coming soon!
What We’ve Done: SQA Fiasco
You might have noticed that the SNP and the SQA fucked over a lot of young people - particularly from disadvantaged areas. The SQA’s careless and classist results policy assigned grades based on the schools’ previous results and punished pupils in disadvantaged areas. As school pupils took the streets to protest, SYG amplified their voices, and Ross Greer took them to Parliament. After intense pressure, the government was forced into a U-Turn, and gave into exactly the demands we made - with 124,000 pupils now getting the grades they were predicted.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on the outcome to the investigation, and will continue to fight for Scotland’s youth!
What We’re Doing: Sex Work is Work
The next big issue we plan to tackle is the Scottish Government’s views on sex work, and the adoption of the Nordic Model. Sex workers have explicitly and repeatedly called out this approach as harmful. We’ve been working with the Rainbow Greens and the Green Trade Union Group to amplify the concerns of sex workers, and to call for the decriminalisation of the sale and purchase of sex.
You can support the campaign by filling out the consultation with answers from the template, both linked below.
Get Involved: Young Green Women Event
SYG’s new sub-group, Young Green Women, is having its second Zoom event on October 7th at 7pm. This is specifically aimed at members who are also members of the Green Party, with a focus on activism in local branches - experiences, ways to improve experiences, and how you can get involved.
FYEG GA Takeover
Our social media was recently taken over by an unruly band of pro-European bandits. If you really insist, you can catch-up on this unfortunate episode on our Instagram highlights and the below Twitter thread.
Feelgood September - People Power Defeats Fossil Fools
Picture this: 3,000 climate justice activists breaking through police blockades to shut down fossil fuel production with villagers cheering them on. Sound too good to be true? Well, it happened, and our friends from FYEG were there. This time, Ende Gelaende’s action was focused on antiracism and climate justice, which reflects Ende Gelaende’s unapologetically radical mix of ideologies. The movement has been organising mass civil disobedience actions since 2015.
Could 2021 be the year SYG join in?