1. Help young people be realistic about what they are likely to achieve.
Most campaigns fail. Or they achieve their aims over such a long period that it can feel like failure. Young people need to be prepared for this.
Having a clear overall objective is good, whether it is the council's commitment to a skatepark or a change in a school rule. But they will also benefit from identifying staging posts of success criteria on their way to the overall objective. Then, even if the eventual goal isn't achieved, they will still have something to congratulate themselves on.
2. Publicity, especially media coverage, can be vital to a campaign's success. But it is always a means, not an end. Look at the McCartney sisters' campaign over the IRA's involvement in their brother's death in Belfast. From obscurity they quickly achieved massive worldwide publicity. Judged by the tremendous worldwide support that sustained them, they have had a massively successful campaign. Yet they still haven't achieved their campaign goal of bringing their brother's killers to justice.
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