(Originally published at The Media Co-op!)
For people who value things like social justice and the common good, the world is a pretty grim place right now.
Many of us are feeling the need to do something, to get active, to make change. And it is not unusual to encounter generic exhortations telling us to “Get involved!” or “Join a group!”
But it is often not clear what that means in practice. What, exactly, should we get involved in? And how?
This article shares suggestions from experienced activists and organizers about practical, existing, grassroots ways to get involved in one specific community — Hamilton, Ontario, a city of 600,000 people on the west end of Lake Ontario. It will hopefully be useful for people who live in that city.
Beyond Hamilton, the list will also help readers figure out the kinds of organizations, groups, projects, and campaigns they can either look for or start in their own communities. And it includes some reflections on broader questions of what it means to get active in the current moment.
The possible answers to “What can I do?” depend a lot on who you are and where you live. Downtown Vancouver or Toronto offer quite different possibilities for grassroots involvement than, say, rural Alberta or a small community in the north. If you are a university student or a union member, you might have options that others don’t. And lots of people face stark pressures and constraints that limit what they can do, from a lack of time and energy, to all of the many violences and injustices that are the whole reason that many want to make change to begin with.
Respondents were asked, “If someone came to you and said, ‘Hey, the world is in rough shape and I want to get involved in grassroots work to change things,’ what would you suggest they get involved in and why?” They were instructed to avoid answers related to elections or political parties, and to focus on ways to be doing things with other people — so, collective grassroots work, rather than individual. And they were asked to be practical and specific, and to talk about things that are actually going on in the Hamilton community rather than things they wish were going on. Most responded by email or message, though one chose to do a short phone interview. Two requested anonymity because of the repression they have been facing as a response to their organizing work.
Jelena Vermilion is a “queer, neurodivergent, and formerly street-involved person” with politics rooted in “mutual aid, abolition, and building collective power,” who is an interdisciplinary artist and community organizer. She is the executive director of the Sex Workers’ Action Program Hamilton and she has “been involved in grassroots harm reduction, housing advocacy, and trans and sex workers’ rights work for nearly a decade.” She recommends people get involved in the Substance Overdose Prevention and Education Network, “a volunteer-led, community-based group committed to mutual aid and sharing knowledge about harm reduction and the toxic drug crisis.”
Hojay Byfield is a tenant and a shift worker who is “driven by a passion for social and economic justice” and is a believer in “the power of collective action.” He has worked on “campaigns for tenant rights, transit, climate justice, and more,” and he is the co-chair of the Stoney Creek chapter of ACORN Hamilton. ACORN is “a member-led, multi-issue community union that builds power from the neighbourhood to the national level” that is active in communities across 17 different countries. He recommends that people get involved in the group, saying, “through direct action and people power, we’ve won real victories — from Hamilton’s own anti-renoviction bylaw, to fair banking policies like the $10 cap on NSF fees that will be legally enforced starting next March.”
Ahona Mehdi is a community and student organizer “who cares about mutual aid, abolition, disability justice, anti-imperialism, and creating liberatory spaces for youth.” She has been involved in efforts supporting racialized and disabled youth impacted by police violence and the school-to-prison pipeline, and various initiatives supporting unhoused people. She thinks one good way to get involved is to connect with mutual aid and youth-led groups. “For example, I’d reach out to your local Food Not Bombs chapter [or] an organization like the Hamilton Encampment Support Network — groups that are doing the work of meeting people’s material needs without the state — or local student groups who are doing the work of building critical consciousness about local & global issues among youth.”
Ritch Whyman is a union staffer and labour activist. He’s also on the executive of the Hamilton and District Labour Council (HDLC) and a member of a small socialist organization. Before MPP Sarah Jama’s loss in the recent provincial election, Whyman would have recommended people get involved in building the “independent radical riding association” that formed to support her after she was kicked out of the NDP and censured by the Conservative government for her stance in solidarity with Palestine. For Whyman, what was most exciting about that effort was the “great mix of people from all kinds of campaigns and left/progressive politics” that were involved, and he hopes that “we will be able to find a way to carry on that work of trying to build a broad leftwing project that can help knit together the struggles both local and global.” More generally, he suggests that union members try to become delegates to the HDLC, or even just get involved without being a formal delegate, because “it’s a bit of a hub for shit disturbers in the unions on different fronts.”
Kerry Le Clair is an environmental justice advocate and co-founder of the Pivot Centre for Collective Action. In general, she recommends that people get involved in environmental justice work, for instance challenging the “environmental racism experienced by Indigenous communities across so-called Canada” and the “environmental classism” that is so clear in the Hamilton context, in which some communities are disproportionately impacted by pollution exposure from industry. She says that one of her organization’s “flagship projects, which we have just launched, is aimed at bolstering the capacity of industrial-adjacent communities to connect with each other, and build collective power and counterpower in the face of environmental injustice.” She urges people in Hamilton to get in touch and be part of efforts to “mobilize concerned residents, regardless of where they live, to take collective action against the root causes and sources of industrial pollution.”
Sara Falconer is a prison abolitionist and has been involved in a range of projects “that raise prisoners’ voices” for more than two decades, including non-local initiatives like Anarchist Black Cross, the Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar, Prison Radio, and more. She suggests people in Hamilton get involved in the Barton Prisoner Solidarity Project, which does “work to support members of our community who are in abysmal conditions in the jail” that’s in the middle of the city.
Sue Markey got her start doing peace and social justice activism in the 1980s, and she was also active in her union until she retired from teaching in 2015. These days, she is part of local climate activism group Hamilton 350 because, she says, “I realized that the climate crisis is an existential threat and I want children, youth, and future generations to live on a healthy planet.” She recommends that others get involved in Hamilton 350 as well, and says that its five subgroups — Climate Justice, Conservation Matters, Elders for Climate Sanity, Fossil Fuel Resistance, and Transit Matters — offer plenty of different ways to focus your energy and to take action.
David Mivasair is a retired activist rabbi who has “been focused for years on doing all I can as a Jew and as a rabbi to support Palestinians in their struggle for justice and survival.” He suggests that one very basic thing that people can do to challenge injustice in the world is get together with others to directly support people who are “in absolutely extreme desperate conditions in Gaza.” In particular, he recommends participating in an ad hoc network called Connecting Gaza, which offers such direct support. He says, “Even though we have not been able to stop the Israeli genocide — and have even not been able to stop one bullet or one bomb despite what millions of activists have been doing — we know that we make a very concrete, tangible difference in the lives of the people we are in relationship with.”
Cole Gately is a “mixed race trans person” and a “liminal being (living between genders and ethnicities)” in his mid-50s who has a long history of involvement in queer and trans, anti-racism, and feminist organizing in Hamilton. He suggests people get involved in the Hamilton Anti-Hate Coalition (HAHC), the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre, and the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion (which describes itself as “focused on civic inclusion, civic engagement, and organizing at a grassroots level” in order to “build an equitable and just society”). He says that while these organizations are part of the non-profit sector, “the latter two are run by long-time grassroots organizers, and HAHC is composed primarily of service providers, with unaffiliated community members like me. They have the advantage of being recognized entities with some clout in the community, while on the other hand, because of their funding affiliations, they are not quite as grassroots as they could be.”
Chris Shannon is an educational assistant who works for the Catholic school board. He is a socialist and an active member of his union, and he has in the past been involved in grassroots direct action campaigns. He says that for people who belong to a union, one useful way to get involved is through their local’s political action committee. He warns that, depending on the union, it might be frustrating to “deal with union bureaucracy.” It is also possible that other members may “not have very much experience with organizing a protest on their own and things like that.” But even so, he suggests that a political action committee can be a way to get together with other people interested in taking action, and the union “can provide a structure and a budget” to help get things done.
Daniel Coleman is a retired English and Cultural Studies professor who has, he says, “become interested in local environmental concerns and supporting Indigenous leadership for solutions to political and environmental challenges.” He recommends a number of local environmental groups, such as Stop the Sprawl (an initiative to oppose expansion of Hamilton’s urban boundary), Save our Streams (a coalition advocating to preserve wetlands and other habitats), and others. He also suggests getting involved in the Two Row Paddle, which “invites Indigenous and non-Indigenous paddlers” on an annual “paddle-and-learn” trip down the Grand River. The trip offers opportunities for “learning from elders and knowledge holders each evening” with a focus on “the wampum covenants and how we can share the ‘river of life’ together and how to implement them now in everyday life.” He says, “We need not wait for governments, but can learn neighbour-to-neighbour how to live up to our original agreements.”
Anonymous #1 says, “As an Arab, politics isn’t just something I study or observe; it’s something I live. It exists in everyday moments, in how I’m treated, the barriers I face, and the ways I’ve had to adapt and push back.” They continue, “Naturally, I came into organizing through the lens of Palestine — not as a single-issue cause, but as a political compass. The struggle for Palestinian liberation … has not only helped me understand my own positionality, but also revealed how global systems of oppression operate and interlock.” They are active in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at McMaster University, which other students might also wish to get involved in. But they say that the most important thing if you want to get involved in grassroots struggle is to just jump in: “There are grassroots groups everywhere doing meaningful work, often without recognition or resources, so the hardest part is really just knowing where to look, but even that isn’t as hard as it seems. Sometimes it’s as simple as sending a DM to an org you follow on social media, filling out a questionnaire, showing up to a protest and talking to the leads/marshalls, or reaching out to a friend you know is involved and asking, ‘How can I help?'”
Anonymous #2 is also a student at McMaster University and “a 20-year-old Arab Muslim organizer with SPHR.” Their “short answer” to the question of how to get involved is to “find community,” even if that does not initially look like a formal organization. “Community and organizing are, in my view, two sides of the same coin. For those looking to get involved, I encourage them to first understand the difference between activism and organizing. While activism often responds reactively to isolated problems, organizing is focused on building communities, movements, and infrastructure that sustain long-term goals. In doing so, you begin to see how grassroots movements — in Hamilton and beyond — whether centred on climate justice, Black liberation, or gendered violence, are all deeply interconnected. By just being an active part of my community, I’ve had the privilege of learning from organizers across these movements, further affirming that the struggle for justice is a shared one, and that the responsibility to challenge the ‘rough shape’ of the world is a collective one, that cannot be fought without community.”
Alex Balch is a filmmaker and community organizer who has been involved in struggles related to housing, poverty, and police violence for around 18 years. He says, “My advice for those who might be getting involved for the first time is to avoid the trap of activist culture. Taking part in large marches and protesting in the streets can be exhilarating and cathartic, but the harsh reality is that these sorts of actions don’t accomplish much on their own. Trying to convince those in power to ‘do the right thing’ is ultimately a distraction. They know what they’re doing. Meaningful change involves building something different, ourselves. This requires face-to-face organizing and the fostering of new social relationships that are rooted in shared struggle. As a starting point, I would recommend talking to your neighbours and organizing around problems that you are all experiencing. If you’re a tenant living in an apartment building, this could mean organizing a building committee to fight against a rent increase, or starting a local community garden or a childcare collective. It could mean talking to your co-workers and coordinating your efforts to build leverage against your boss. Rather than rushing to join an established political organization, take an honest look at your life and the people around you, and look for the seeds of resistance there.”
Lisa Nussey is a single mother of three, a former midwife, and a doctoral student in public health. She “analyses and organizes against the impacts of capitalism and imperialism on people’s health” and looks to “the Global South, mainly Latin America and Palestine in this moment, for inspiration in the form of social and liberatory medicine.” She says, “There are no quick fixes to all of this. … If there are groups working on issues that are important to you in your area, go to their events, reach out, and see how you can get involved.” But, she warns, that may not be immediately possible, because “many groups just don’t have the capacity to do the work they are doing AND bring new people into it.” In the absence of a ready-made group to join, Nussey says, “we all have to start where we are, whether that’s our building or neighbourhood or school or job or group of friends. … The work of organizing doesn’t happen somewhere else, but exactly where you are. Find one or two like-minded people … and start addressing [the ‘rough shape’ the world is in] where you are at and who you are with.” This can mean talking through issues and learning together, it can mean working together to challenge the little injustices we face in our everyday lives and communities, it can mean building small local alternatives to begin meeting people’s needs, like a community garden. She adds, “In building what we need and pushing back against decisions of the ‘powerful’ in our midst … we can collectively build a base of skills and networks to oppose their agenda and maybe one day even set our own.”
Caitlin Craven currently works in the non-profit sector but has been involved in migrant justice, anti-racism, and food justice organizing in the past. She warns that trying to figure out how to take action in this moment is “not…simple or easy.” She sees value in directly supporting arriving refugees or migrant workers, serving food through groups like Food Not Bombs, and the work that networks in the city are doing to support people living in encampments. She emphasizes, “It’s important to do this work collectively and not just as an individual giving charity, because it’s actually the process of building the relationships and sharing skills that is needed.” As important as collective, direct support work can be, however, she warns that it is “still limited” in what it can accomplish, “and it’s probably going to feel like it isn’t really doing anything to change the horrific systems around us.”
Craven is also a strong advocate for creating spaces to come together outside of formal institutions to engage in political education with one another. “Collective reading and analysis of writing or speeches of political thinkers and leaders from history is vital and isn’t going to happen inside corporate university structures, unfortunately. This is especially true for Black liberation, non-white feminist, Indigenous thought, and thought from the experiences of colonialism and decolonization in the Global South.” She is not aware of any such initiatives in Hamilton at the moment, but she points to a recent project from the Caribbean Solidarity Network in Toronto that did this, called Caribbean Community Study Circles — “That would be great to see in Hamilton.” She adds, “I think there is a fear, especially in heightened times, that doing educational work is not responding to the immediate situation with urgency. I get that, but if we lose that collective knowledge our responses to urgency will be too easy to manipulate and shut down.”
She also warns against sinking grassroots energy into electoral politics and the non-profit sector in our current circumstances. Instead, she says, “What we lack in Hamilton are strong social movements that can apply that pressure from the outside.”
Scott Neigh is a writer, media producer, and activist based in Hamilton, Ontario. You can pre-order his new book,Listen! Knowing the World and Fighting to Change It, out from Fernwood Publishing in November 2025.