SFT's programs focus on two main areas: hard-hitting campaigns to make China’s occupation of Tibet too costly to maintain, and training to help students become successful leaders and activists for Tibet and their own communities. Our campaigns mobilize tens of thousands of people around the world, leveraging pressure on the Chinese government to leave Tibet. Our leadership training has given thousands of young people the skills and inspiration to be leaders in the struggle for Tibet and for social justice worldwide.

CAMPAIGNS

SFT’s campaigns are designed to press on multiple fronts, pressuring key decision-makers, depriving the Chinese government of financing for its colonial strategies in Tibet, and helping members continually raise awareness about the Tibetan plight. SFT gets results by using the varied tools of education, lobbying, media advocacy, and nonviolent direct action. At any given time, SFT is involved in two or three major campaigns. SFT presents members with options so that they can work according to their particular skills and interests. Some students may choose economic campaigns, others may focus on Tibetan political prisoners. SFT does not dictate what students work on, but supports them by providing organizing tools, outreach materials, action alerts and breaking news. With guidance from the international office and regional leaders, they prioritize and plan campaign strategy.

Human Rights Campaigns

Many of SFT’s campaigns push for the release of political prisoners. These are people who practiced basic freedoms – of speech, of religion, of movement – that many of us take for granted. Freeing these freedom fighters so that they can continue their work is a crucial part of helping Tibet, but these campaigns are part of a larger strategy as well. By bringing international pressure to bear on the Chinese government, we will convince them that arresting Tibetans for speaking out for independence and human rights isn’t worth the international criticism that results. In this way, we can advance the longer-term goal of making it safer for Tibetans inside Tibet to openly organize political opposition to China’s occupation.

Political Campaigns

The Chinese government desperately wants to be accepted as a leading player on the world stage, and is extremely sensitive to criticism from other governments or international bodies. By lobbying governments to speak up about Tibet in discussions with China, campaigning against prestigious recognitions such as being awarded the Olympic Games, and by targeting Chinese leaders with demonstrations when they travel abroad, Students for a Free Tibet is able to remind the Chinese government that until it leaves Tibet and begins to respect the human rights of its own citizens, its representatives will face condemnation around the world and China will never be a truly respected member of the international community.

Economic Campaigns

Through economic campaigns, Students for a Free Tibet aims to prevent international financing of China’s occupation of Tibet. We have successfully prevented funding from the World Bank, discouraged oil and mining companies and other corporations from going into Tibet, and changed the policies of companies already in Tibet.

LEADERSHIP TRAINING

Students for a Free Tibet’s leadership training program combines education in the history, philosophy, strategy and tactics of nonviolent social change with concrete opportunities for young people to use their new knowledge and hone their skills while working with experienced activists. Through this combination of intensive training and mentorship, SFT has equipped hundreds of young people with the tools— both practical and theoretical— to play critical leadership roles not only in the Tibet movement, but in movements for social and environmental justice worldwide.

Free Tibet! Action Camp

Free Tibet! Action Camp is a week-long intensive training in the skills and strategies of nonviolent action and grassroots organizing for the current and future leaders of the movement for Tibetan independence. Camp will give you the skills to be a leader in the movement to free Tibet, and give you the energy to keep doing it for the next ten years! Action Camp immerses participants in a comprehensive curriculum that includes the history and philosophy of applied nonviolence, grassroots organizing, campaign strategy, media advocacy, nonviolent direct action tactics, political theater, fundraising, and more. Camps bring together roughly 60 students with some of the most experienced social justice trainers in the world, including activists and trainers from groups such as EarthRights International, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network and The Ruckus Society.