Movement Building

As part of a larger campaign to support the right to land, this week Grassroots International provided a $10,000 grant to boost education and organizing around a powerful national referendum in Brazil. The referendum, being organized by social movements for the first week of September, probes public opinion regarding the size of land holdings.

Grassroots International and U.S. Friends of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (FMST) are delighted to host Ana Justo, from the Florestan Fernandes National School of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), a Grassroots International partner and a member of the Via Campesina. She will be speaking Thursday, July 8 at Encuentro 5 in Boston at 6 p.m. Click here for more information.

Grassroots International recently supported a delegation of Haitian social movements to attend the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit. This diverse group represented several of our partners and allies on the ground in Haiti and offered them a unique networking and educational platform.

With the support of Grassroots International, the Mexican Alliance for the Self-Determination of Peoples (AMAP) sent a small delegation of Indigenous representatives to the Peoples World Conference on Climate Change, held in Cochabamba, Bolivia from April 19-22, 2010. Below is an excerpt from AMAP’s report from the event:

By Alisa Pimentel

Among the almost 20,000 activists gathered in Detroit for the US Social Forum this week are several Grassroots International partners and allies. Grassroots International regularly provides funding to our partners and allies to participate in movement-building and leadership development gatherings.

Last month, I traveled to Cochabamba, Bolivia for a number of reasons. The main one was to attend the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Many of Grassroots International’s partners from Latin America, Asia and Africa were also there – some of whom we supported to attend – and it was a great opportunity for me to meet with them and with many of our allies in one central location. They were all at the conference because for them the climate crisis is immediate in its impact and not some theoretical scenario for the future.

Grassroots International had been hearing from our partners in Haiti, both the peasant movements as well as the urban-based coalitions, that they were extremely disheartened by their exclusion from the development of plans for Haiti’s relief and reconstruction. Since the week after the earthquake, our partners have shared with us several thoughtful and powerful statements that outline the key principles and strategies necessary for a more just renewal of Haiti - from their perspective. Grassroots International has been sharing their statements as widely as possible – working to insert and amplify their voices within the larger policy debates.

Frankly, a lot! Here's just three factoids to think about (and there are many more)

• One out of 6 people globally does not have access to clean water.

• Nearly half the world’s population — that’s 2.5 billion people — does not have access to basic sanitation facilities.     

• Large-scale corporate agricultural production consumes 70% of the world’s fresh water.

 You see, for us at Grassroots International water is a political lens through which we can see the injustice in the world: who has it, who controls it, who profits from it; and who never has enough, and doesn’t control nor profit from it

Last August, I stood in Haiti’s Artibonite valley with several peasant organizers and looked out at the mountains leading up to the Central Plateau. The older leaders in the group explained in depth how green the mountains once were, while the younger organizers and I listened in amazement. The tropical lime forests they described from their past were the antithesis of the sandy naked slopes we saw in the distance.