| In August 1999, while at a poorly attended protest against oil giant Chevron, Grant Neufeld talked with fellow activists about the difficulties in communicating social justice events in the city.
That night, the self-admitted computer geek plunked himself down in front of his Macintosh and got to work. Now, he is stepping back from a project that has consumed nearly five years of his life and become a central fixture in the city’s social justice community – the Calgary Activist Network (www.activist.ca).
"I’ve been at it for about four-and-a-half years now, and I find my energy for it is dwindling," Neufeld says. "It’s largely been around as a de facto dictatorship. It’s just been me doing all the work… and if it’s to be a sustainable project, it needs to be dependent on not just one person."
Technically, the Activist Network is a website that lists events, describes organizations and disperses information. More fundamentally, however, it has helped the social justice community in Calgary work more closely together and facilitated connections between activists, organizations and ideas.
Soon after he launched his idea, Neufeld merged it with the Arusha Centre’s old newsletter of social activism and the project grew. The Activist Network became central to organizing protests for the G8 Summit last year and the World Petroleum Congress prior to that, and helped bring together new organizations and connect groups previously working independently. Calgary’s activist community is stronger and more organized today than at any time in the recent past, and although Neufeld’s modesty won’t own up to it, the Activist Network is a big part of that.
"For me, the Network has never been a goal. It’s means to a goal," Neufeld says. "The outcome is there is more communication now than there was and more people coming out to events. That, to me, says it is successful."
Neufeld says he is going to step back from his baby by the end of the year, and is working to set up a collective to run the site in his absence.
Gordon Christie of the Calgary and District Labour Council says the Network has changed the city’s activist community for the better, and credits Neufeld’s tireless work.
"If it wasn’t for Grant, we wouldn’t be talking about the Activist Network today," Christie says. "Not just as a computer geek, but as a human networker. He’s really put his life’s work into it."
Despite its success, Neufeld says he feels little satisfaction. He says he never found the time to implement many of the ideas swirling around his head, and he had bigger ambitions for the project, even though several groups in Edmonton and Ottawa are already using it.
But he says it was a difficult decision to step away, and he’s looking forward to getting more people involved in its operation and putting more of his energy into other projects.
"It was a difficult decision," he says. "But it’s the community connections that are important." |
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