The Recovery Bill of Rights
is a statement of the principle that all Americans have a right to recover from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Learn more…
Event: Rally for Recovery! 2010
 |
 |
|---|
Advocacy Action Area
Recovery celebrations are important for so many different reasons – they’re an opportunity to put a face and a voice on recovery and to advance our advocacy agenda. Faces & Voices of Recovery has long suggested that we should never bring an army of people together without asking them to fight for something meaningful. In 2007, as part of the planning of the National Hub event at Liberty State Park with our friends at FOAR-NJ/NCADD-NJ, the idea of an Advocacy Action Area was born to achieve that goal.
This year we are building on those efforts to encourage recovery advocates across the country to take action as they Rally for Recovery! Faces & Voices will be setting up computers at the national hub event in Philadelphia so that participants can email their members of Congress about making sure that recovery support services are part of nationa health reform. Here are some advocacy activities that you can do. Pick and choose from the list below to make Recovery Voices Count in 2010!
- Voter registration. Have voter registration materials available and register voters. You can get forms from your canvassing authority. Use our Guide to Nonpartisan Civic Engagement and check your state’s law for eligibility requirements. You can give out stickers that say “I registered to vote” to people who register.
- Support recovery in national health reform. Have computers available for rally participants to email their members of Congress to support coverage for addiction recovery as part of national health reform. Set up to use Faces & Voices Online Advocacy Action Center to urge rally participants to call their members of Congress.
- Recovery Bill of Rights endorsement. Ask rally participants to endorse the Recovery Bill of Rights. You can “blow it up” and put it on a poster board so that participants can endorse it. Last year, thousands of people endorsed the Recovery Bill of Rights, autographing it with their recovery date.
- An advocacy Issue in your community or state. Ask people at your rally to participate in your local advocacy campaign by pledging to make a phone call; email an elected official; volunteer for your organization; or speak out at a hearing or other gathering.
Above all, collect the names and contact information for people who are at your event and want to get involved! You can use pledge forms; individual sign-up sheets; or have people sign-up online! Then, get in touch with them shortly after your event to thank them and involve them in your recovery advocacy!
Recovery Voices Count. We’re using these strategies to take advantage of the energy and excitement about Rally for Recovery! to build our recovery advocacy efforts year-round.
Setting up Your Advocacy Action Area
- Create an area or defined space at your event that is dedicated to advocacy. It can be a tent, a group of tables or chairs where people can gather. Make sure it’s in a prominent location at the rally. Put up signs to direct rally participants and make announcements encouraging people to come over the Advocacy Action Area over the loudspeaker.
- Recruit volunteers to staff the area and train them on exactly what you want them to do.
- Have plenty of supplies on hand. If you’re going to have computers, make sure that you’re set up to use them out-of-doors and away from the home and office. Clipboards are great for moving among participants and asking people to sign a pledge and take action.
And we’ve found that one of the most effective ways to ask people to participate in these activities is to provide incentives. We’ve given out a different lapel sticker for each action that an individual takes to keep track of who’s done what, but also to encourage people to take all of our suggested actions. You can use a different lapel sticker for each action and then, if someone earns all of the stickers, they are eligible to win a prize. (You can order lapel stickers from Faces & Voices of Recovery and online from lots of organizations.) In New Jersey, there was a contest and a drawing for people who earned three lapel stickers. They received a raffle ticket and were eligible to win prizes.
Recovery Voices Count!