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  • Blog

    Grassroots spreads the word on Global South movements at national conferences, social media.

    By: | abril 8, 2015

    Grassroots International is hard at work across the U.S. and beyond putting issues such as climate justice, food sovereignty, resource rights, Palestine, women’s leadership—even when they are controversial or unpopular—into the limelight. 

    Spreading the word is a key strategy we use to advance resource rights, particularly when it comes to connecting our Global South partners to sources of solidarity, funding and support, and making changes in policies here in the U.S.  We do more than give grants; we build solidarity right here in the U.S. for our partners and their social movements.  It is also a key reason why funders and donors choose Grassroots International as a vehicle to support them.

  • In the News

    The Best Way to Feed the Billions

    By: | marzo 30, 2015

    We share planet Earth with nearly 7.3 billion people. By 2050, there will be 9.6 billion of us, according to the United Nations. That’s a gain of one person every 15 seconds—or about 74 million more people each year—and each another mouth to feed.

    Some claim we need to increase world food production by 70 percent to avoid future shortages, especially in developing countries, where the greatest population increases are expected over the next 35 years. Are they right? It’s a question that many, including the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s Population Institute, are raising.

  • In the News

    Radical Farmers Use Fresh Food to Fight Racial Injustice and the New Jim Crow

    By: | marzo 27, 2015

    In August, five young men showed up at Soul Fire Farm, a sustainable farm near Albany, New York, where I work as educator and food justice coordinator. It was the first day of a new restorative justice program, in partnership with the county’s Department of Law. The teens had been convicted of theft, and, as an alternative to incarceration, chose this opportunity to earn money to pay back their victims while gaining farm skills. They looked wary and unprepared, with gleaming sneakers and averted eyes.

    “I basically expected it to be like slavery, but it would be better than jail,” said a young man named Asan. “It was different though. We got paid and we got to bring food home. The farmers there are black like us, which I did not expect.

  • Blog

    On Land Day Protestors Hold Their Ground

    By: | marzo 27, 2015

    For several months brave activists and residents have built protest tents outside of the Jerusalem gate in  Eizaria.  The Israeli military has destroyed their tents 11 times—but each time the determined activists build them again.  They are saying no to an Israeli plan remove 2,500 Bedouins shepherds from their land, their homes and their traditional way of life while also displacing fellow Palestinians in Abu Dis and Eizaria.  What will Israel do with the land in an area they term “E1” to the North and East of Jerusalem?  Expand its largest illegal settlement: Maale Adumin.

  • Blog

    The People Affected by the Belo Monte Dam: A Photo Blog

    By: | marzo 25, 2015

    According to our partner the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), approximately 10,000 families in the city of Altamira in Brazil will be directly affected by the flooding and subsequent lake created from the construction of the Belo Monte mega-dam. Meanwhile Norte Energia, the company responsible for this mega-project, has only built 4,100 poorly-constructed houses for the displaced without any other infrastructure like schools, medical facilities, and public transportation for the displaced communities. These are only a few of the reasons is why hundreds of people came together on March 11 to protest against the Belo Monte dam.

  • Blog

    Women’s Equity, Respect and Dignity in Central America: An Interview with Yasmín López

    By: | marzo 24, 2015

    Grassroots International celebrates the courageous work of frontline women defending the human rights of peasant and indigenous women around the world. One of these women is Yasm Lez, a national coordinator for the Council for the Integral Development of the Peasant Woman (CODIMCA). A partner of Grassroots International, CODIMCA is the lead organization for the Womens Regional Commission of La V CampesinaCentral America, and one of the first peasant women-led organizations formed in Honduras with the explicit objective of reclaiming womens land rights. Below is an excerpt of my interview with Yasm.

    What inspires you to work for womens rights in Honduras?

  • Blog

    Slated for eviction, Afro-Brazilian Villages Mobilize for Rights

    By: | marzo 18, 2015

    The long-standing Afro-Brazilian, or Quilombola, village of Tambor, Amazonia received a nasty surprise last year. A federal judge sent notice, from his office 3,600 kilometers away in Brazil’s capital, to these descendants of fugitive slaves that their village wasn’t actually Quilombola, and therefore the entire village needed to be evicted. 

    This was in spite of the fact that the Quilombola families have lived and raised their families there for over 100 years. They had also applied for and secured official recognition and status as a protected Quilombola village, which gave them the legal right to the territory on which the village stands.

  • In the News

    Defining women’s progress on the grassroots level

    By: Linda Bloom | marzo 17, 2015

    The following is an article on a recent event in New York City co-sponsored by United Methodist Women which brought women from around the globe to exchange information on women’s rights and the international evolution of women’s status.  The event coincided with the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).  Highlighted in the article is Esperanza Cardona, coordinator of the National Women’s Commission of La Via Campesina in Honduras, and a Grassroots International partner.

    In some ethnic cultures in Cameroon, a woman whose husband dies is isolated in a dark room for three days, with only the presence of other widows for company.

  • Blog

    Remembering Jean Hardisty

    By: | marzo 16, 2015

    Jean Hardisty, a gentle and fierce leader in the movement for women’s and civil rights, has died. A former member of Grassroots International's Board of Directors and part of the Advisory Board, Jean founded Political Research Associates, a Boston-based research center that analyzes right wing, authoritarian, and anti-democratic trends and publishes educational materials for the general public. Her death comes after a many-year struggle with cancer.

  • In the News

    Women Changing the World

    By: | marzo 6, 2015

    International Women’s Day (March 8) celebrates the power and struggle of women all over the world. There are so many stories of women’s strength, inspiration and bold leadership in the work of our partners and grantees. Eighty-eight percent of the groups that Grassroots International supports work to promote women’s rights. Here are just some of the women-led projects that we have supported over the past year.

  • In the News

    The Unexpected Learning Exchanged: Gender Consciousness and Capacity

    By: | febrero 24, 2015

    Humanity cannot solve its problems with one hand effectively tied behind its back. Yet, given the state of women’s rights globally, this is metaphorically the case. One of the guiding principles of Grassroots International's work is the recognition and support of women’s agency in the struggle for justice and liberation – not just to advance women’s leadership (though that is a goal) but also because women’s engagement and leadership are necessary to push us all forward.

  • Blog

    Black Lives Matter: Police Repression, the US, and the Political Crisis in Haiti

    By: | febrero 23, 2015

    In the United States we’ve spent months zeroing in on the reality of police brutality against Black people.  We’ve been grateful to see and take part in a growing movement that addresses structural racism—pointing out that Black people are disproportionately more likely to die at the hands of police, face institutional racism, and breathe more polluted air. 

    In the Black nation of Haiti, too, there has been a systematic dismissal of the value of Black lives and US policy has been deeply implicated in interventions that slaughter the interests of Haiti’s people in favor of a narrow elite.

  • Blog

    Africa not a Blank Slate, Farmers Already have Solutions

    By: | febrero 18, 2015

    Contrary to Western assertions, Africa is not a blank slate.

    Africans have a long history of vibrant culture, politics, economics and agriculture. However, since Europe’s first encounter with Africa through present day, international “decisionmakers” have approached the African continent as though it was devoid of people along with history. Africa is imagined out of context, and those projections become the basis for policy.

    In our times, the battle for Africa is being waged one plot of agricultural land at a time. Control of Africa’s food system is being wrested away from peasant farmers and being turned over to agribusinesses such as Monsanto under the guise of agricultural development.

  • In the News

    300 scientists and legal experts: «No scientific consensus on GMO safety»

    By: Angelika Hilbeck, Rosa Binimelis, Nicolas Defarge, Ricarda Steinbrecher, András Székács, Fern Wickson, Michael Antoniou, Philip L Bereano, Ethel Ann Clark, Michael Hansen, Eva Novotny, Jack Heinemann, Hartmut Meyer, Vandana Shiva and Brian Wynne | febrero 18, 2015

    In yet another setback for the claims by Monsanto and other biotech giants that GMOs are safe, a group of 300 scientists and legal experts have recently found that there is no consensus on GMO safety, and that claims to the contrary are misleading. As one scientist who was originally involved in the creation of GMO tomatoes now puts it, to assume there is scientific consensus is little more than wishful thinking.  The following is the statement, which Grassroots International signed onto, from the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER).

     

    No scientific consensus on GMO safety statement published in peer-reviewed journal

     

  • In the News

    Will ICC Investigate Abuses of Israeli Occupation?

    By: | febrero 5, 2015

    Is it possible to hold Israel accountable for its violations of Palestinians’ human rights, and thus take steps to end at least some of the worst aspects of the Israeli occupation, through the arena of international law?  That’s a question that could be answered in the coming years.

    On January 16, 2015, the International Criminal Court launched a preliminary investigation into possible war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.  This is an initial inquiry, after which point the ICC could decide whether or not to take up a full investigation.

  • Blog

    They Uproot and We Plant: Olive Trees and Resistance in Palestine

    By: | enero 21, 2015

    Last week we got word that settlers had destroyed hundreds of olive trees very near to the area in the Southern Hebron Hills where Grassroots International’s delegation to Palestine harvested olives in October.  Similar acts of violence by settlers are a reality that Palestinian farmers face day in and day out throughout the occupied Palestinian territories and a painful reminder of the impact of the settlers on stolen land.  

  • Blog

    Stories of Victory and Struggle from 2014

    By: | enero 15, 2015

    Grassroots International and our global partners are leading the way in developing sustainable solutions to the biggest challenges facing our world. From farming cooperatives and seed banks, to passing laws that protect ancestral lands and defending the human right to land, water, and food,  together we take on big struggles and win important gains. Below are just some of the successes achieved in 2014 with support from Grassroots International, standing up to challenge poverty, climate disruption and human rights abuses.

    Moving Towards an International Declaration on the Rights of Peasants

  • In the News

    Seeds of Resistance in the Project of Life

    By: | enero 14, 2015

    Think of the seed as the first link of the food chain.  If this prime component is compromised, the chain becomes untenable.  What’s more, if corporate interests control seeds, we are all subjugated to their agenda at every subsequent link of the chain.  In fact, the preponderance of GMO and copyrighted seeds from agribusiness laboratories and mono-cropped fields already determine to a frightening degree the foods we can buy and eat.  To counter these billion dollar agro-corporate interests, seed sovereignty activists have sought strength in their greatest resources — their knowledge and collective power.

  • In the News

    Seeds of Resistance in the Project of Life

    By: | enero 14, 2015

    Think of the seed as the first link of the food chain.  If this prime component is compromised, the chain becomes untenable.  Whats more, if corporate interests control seeds, we are all subjugated to their agenda at every subsequent link of the chain.  In fact, the preponderance of GMO and copyrighted seeds from agribusiness laboratories and mono-cropped fields already determine to a frightening degree the foods we can buy and eat.  To counter these billion dollar agro-corporate interests, seed sovereignty activists have sought strength in their greatest resources their knowledge and collective power.