Tamlit, Ali

Based in the large building to the right, the Ulex Project is a residential activist training centre in the Catalonian town of Eroles. Photo: Ulex

Burnout is a topic that is close to my heart. Having experienced a couple of intense periods of burnout and having recently realised that I continue to hold chronic low-level stress, tiredness and anxiety in my body, the question ‘How can we do sustainable activism?’ is one that I am constantly seeking answers to.

Doing activism…

On 28 March, I was part of the ‘End Deportations – Stop Charter Flights’ action by Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants and Plane Stupid at Stansted airport, which successfully prevented a mass deportation to Nigeria and Ghana.

We took this action in solidarity with the 57 people on board the flight who were being forcefully removed from the UK. We were in touch with some of these people and knew their stories and knew the potential fates that awaited them if they were deported.…

For the past two years I’ve been living in a well-known squatted site of resistance. While people usually ask me about the legal situation, the threat of eviction isn’t one of the main challenges for me. One of the biggest challenges for me is the constant flow of new people coming with the assumption that it’s an ‘open site’ because it’s a squat.

‘At the end of the day yeah, it’s just a squat, so you can’t tell me what to do’, is a phrase that I hear irritatingly often. Not that…

It was quite easy to decide to do the action. We knew that the Davis commission was due to make an announcement that would recommend a new runway somewhere in the South East, we just didn't know whether it would be Heathrow or Gatwick. The Davis commission was flawed from the beginning, asking where we need airport expansion, not if we need it – and clearly we don't need it.

Airport expansion is being driven by 15 percent of the population taking 70 percent of flights; this isn't…

How many of us are in some way dissatisfied with the way things are in the world? Perhaps you've witnessed some grave injustice or you're even the victim of a social ill? Maybe you've spent years in academic settings trying to understand what's wrong with the world, but isn't the point to change it? Maybe you just know, things aren't meant to be like this.

Chances are you can relate to most if not all of the above and if so you might have been drawn to do something about it. Making…