If January shows us how the year 2022 will be, well, it’s undoubtedly a challenging one!
Things have been rumbling in the last few days: war is casting a shadow over Europe, with Putin’s Russia increasing its unilateral threat against Ukraine. In the meantime, Bitcoins dipped by 50% compared to their top value in November 2021, and UK’s Boris Johnson has been caught organizing illegal parties at COVID’s peak all over Downing Street 10, his official residence and office. And these are just drops in the bucket of what 2022 has brought us so far.
At Atlas, we understand one thing: a handful of people can’t fight all these battles. However, do you know what they can do? Provide a direction, so that many more besides and after them can change the world. This is why we have dramatically stepped up the work in two dimensions:
⭕ The development of Equitism, the philosophy we hope can improve structurally the way we live on this planet
✊ The involvement of our Community, as only many brains & hearts can lead to real change.
Read below what we mean in practice, and please consider:
EQUITISM: MORE THAN JUST A DREAM 🚀
If you have followed our work in the last few months, you might know that we are developing a new philosophy called Equitism. The idea is simple: Equitism is the political, social, and economic ideology promoting an equitable world - a world in which people are treated fairly and have equitable access to opportunities and rights, and where the well-being of all people, communities, and the planet are society’s priorities.
The founders of Atlas created the concept of Equitism in 2021 and have relentlessly worked with the Atlas community to develop it further. Indeed, we live in a world where the status quo no longer satisfies the people, where global challenges increasingly loom in our future, and inequalities are growing. The way forward is too often undefined for many. We thus seek, through Equitism, to help you understand what the world could look like 🔭 and what is needed to get to this new utopia.
In practice, spreading an idea requires a good plan (and some luck 🍀) :). On our side, we are working very hard to promote Equitism through a daily newsletter, an upcoming weekly podcast, internal events for members only, and external ones.
Additionally, in other good news: 💥 our Policy Team is restarting its work with flying colors! Robin (the veteran who has carried forward the team in the last few weeks) has now been joined by Rey (an excellent, Jakarta-based member with great experience on reproductive rights). The new duo is working very hard to take the idea of Equitism and make it concrete for everyday topics and issues! They are going to tackle the following macro-areas:
💰 Economic Equity
🏳️🌈 Social Equity
🌴 Environmental Equity
🗳️ Institutional Equity
🤖 Future Equity
How? By facilitating debates, input and policy making from all members interested in joining!
Are you interested in helping out on this? You don’t have to be an expert; we are looking for passion. It’s time to volunteer for the Policy Team!
ANY CHANCE WE GET TO DISCUSS ALL OF THIS IN-DEPTH 🤿?
Yes!
The work of the Policy Team - as one of many other teams - is aimed at an extraordinary moment for our movement: the Equitist Convention. We will host a major international conference to discuss & develop Equitism with experts and host an internal General Assembly of the Atlas Movement.
The Equitist Convention is the first official gathering of all those people across the planet recognizing that a new societal model based on the value of equity must be advanced. This first convention aims to present and discuss the first draft of the Equitist Manifesto 📜 and thus lay the ground for more awareness and impact around the idea of Equitism.
Here are the primary details (more soon):
⏰ When: July 15-17th (aka the anniversary of the birth of Atlas & Nelson Mandela Day)
🗺️ Where: online & in several regional hubs we will set up worldwide!
As before, we are looking for support. So please get in touch with us if you want to help out with the organization of the event or if you know of cool spaces around you where we could set up a hub ;)
⚙️ AND ON THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF THINGS?
We are certainly not slowing down. While continuing our work to explore the creation of a Hong Kong Government in Exile 🏴, our Community is mobilizing on many different topics, including:
🇮🇳 In India, by starting to work on the issue of Marital Rape
🇹🇳 In Tunisia, on discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people
🇪🇸 In Spain, on the issue of depopulation of rural areas
🇳🇱 In The Netherlands, on climate
And besides grassroots mobilization, we are also taking on the main battles of our time! For example, we have just entered a cooperative arrangement with Taiwan 🇹🇼, through the UK Embassy, to analyze and explain their tech-driven innovative democratic practices, and see if there is potential for other countries to adopt them. Standing with Taiwan means standing with freedom & democracy, so we are very proud of this work (it will be out by the end of February).
Well, this is it! We hope you are as proud of our work as we are, and if you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to contact us :)
We’ll change the world!
Andrea & Colombe
On behalf of the Atlas team
