Uplift gives everyday people across Ireland the chance to make an extraordinary difference in so many ways.
We come from all walks of life and experience life in different ways – but what unites us, is our belief that together we can make Ireland a better place for everyone.
In the first two weeks of January, close to 1,500 of us shared our thoughts about the year ahead. Here is a snapshot of what we said we wanted to put effort into this year.
- Protecting renters and campaigning for more public homes is our top priority.
- Exposing pollution and carbon emissions produced by big business;
- Protecting and planting more trees; and tackling plastic pollution.
- Pushing for better local planning systems, reigning in big tech; and,
- taking action to stop racism and hate are all there at the top of the list of what our movement cares most about
We need to do what it takes to make a real difference on the things our movement cares about.
Those are the issues we said we wanted to campaign on, but our community also said how we should go about winning together. More than anything, members want our community to make sure politicians feel the heat more this year. Tied with holding politicians accountable is wanting to use our consumer power to force companies and services to behave better, especially banks, shops, and energy providers. Partnering with communities affected by injustice was also voted a top priority.
There are many ways in which we can show up and be a good ally. Working with survivors of violence, backing groups taking on racism and the cruel immigration system including direct provision, showing up more solidarity with the Traveller community, and with LGBTQ+ people and communities all fighting against the injustices and discrimination they face in their daily lives, are some of the ways we can show up.
There’s a huge appetite in our community for more local campaigning and for getting better at spreading the news about the
things we care about across social media and through WhatsApp. Campaigns like better public transport, 24/7 mental health services, helping students have a better experience in school and college, protecting renters, stopping toxic glyphosate are just some of the many things that local campaigns can be powerful.
Uplift members face many challenges as individuals, in their families and communities.
Needing regular healthcare is a reality for many people in our community, especially the struggle for round-the-clock mental health support. Surviving on a low income is a shared experience for many members – in low paid work, unpaid care work, welfare-dependent, older people living on a small pension. A stark number of people have experienced violence, abuse, racism, and hate in different ways.
We care about each other & believe we are stronger together.
As a community, we stand with each other and we are prepared to put our skills, knowledge, money, time to work for an Ireland that’s fair, equal, just.
In early 2022 there are 345,000 of us connected together through our people-powered community. We’ve members who work in local communities providing important services and supporting communities to stand up for themselves. There are members living in Direct Provision Centres, in cities or on isolated islands, many of us are retired, accountants, artists, farmers, teachers, students and healthcare professionals.
There is no end to talent and knowledge in Uplift. The thread that connects us all, is that we care about the communities we live in and want them to be safer and happier places to live in. We also care deeply about getting to the root causes of the many challenges and difficulties we see around us. And we want to push hard for better decisions, laws, policies. A big part of our work we believe needs to be focused on making sure big business does not cause harm.
Rated highly is the desire to make sure members come from all walks of life so that our movement continues to grow stronger and be diverse. We also agree that we can run stronger and bigger campaigns, so raising more money is important to do that.
Uplift is an independent community and most of the money we use to keep going comes from members who chip in a bit every month or when we have to pay for a campaign action. Without you, we wouldn’t be able to pull off all the things we do together, so fair play.
