Our food is under threat. It is felt by every family farmer who has lost their land and livelihood, every parent who can't find affordable or healthy ingredients in their neighborhood, every person worried about foodborne illnesses thanks to lobbyist-weakened food safety laws, every farmworker who faces toxic pesticides in the fields as part of a day's work.
From all corners of the world, small farmers, indigenous peoples and human rights activists have been percolating solutions upward to advance their rights to land, water and food. With 2011 behind us, Grassroots International celebrates some of the victories and inroads that took place last year, all with funding from Grassroots International and our supporters. Below are just some of the highlights.
Two years following the earthquake, community-based organizations in Haiti are still advocating for the same changes and considerations as they did last year, namely land and housing rights, respect for national sovereignty in the reconstruction process and aid accountability.
Since returning from exile last year, former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier has been treated like an old friend by Haitian President Michel Martelly, rather than a brutal dictator responsible for the deaths, torture and disappearances of thousands of Haitian citizens. Duvalier’s excesses as commander-in-chief of Haiti’s notorious “Tonton Makouts” have been denounced internationally as crimes against humanity.
As we approach 20 years since the first United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change occurred in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, the global impact of our broken food system continues to mount. In fact, the industrial food system – from production to deforestation to transport to waste – is responsible for 44 to 57 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. The article below by our colleagues at GRAIN shines a light on the hidden link between the industrial food system and global warming.
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Bajo Aguan is vast piece of fertile farmland. Good soil, abundant water resources and cheap labor make this region in Honduras the main target for international investors seeking profits from agro-fuels plantations. In many areas of Honduras, large plantations...
On my last program visit to the Middle East, I had a chance to spend two days with Stop the Wall Campaign (a Grassroots International partner) staff and leaders throughout the West Bank. Through all of our conversations, two distinct but complementary themes arose – steadfastness and fierce determination from farmers who had been in the struggle for decades, and creative vibrant energy from youth who have recently taken on leadership in their local committees and in the broader movement.
Entering Brazil for the first time, each farmer had their own stories to share – of their journey and of their struggle. Robert, from Namibia, had the most excruciating trip. He had to take different flights to reach his final...
The issue of land grabs remains a critical threat to human rights, forcing millions of people off the land to make way for large-scale industrial farms. Land grabs in Ethiopia are not only threatening to dislocate farmers but are doing so with significant financial aid from the United States. Take a moment to read the information below provided by our colleagues at the Oakland Institute and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia and take action.
Haitians, whether in Haiti or the diaspora, will always remember where they were on January 12, 2010, when tragedy shook us to our core. Devastating images emerged from Port-au-Prince after the earthquake that brought to mind cinematic depictions of the aftermath of a blitzkrieg. I had to constantly remind myself that an earthquake did this, not indiscriminate bombing. In the days that followed my heart wanted a seat on the next airplane to Haiti, but my mind grounded me on a simple fact: I had no medical training and my presence could not give the kind of help that was immediately needed. But I wanted to do something…
As we approach the second anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake, millions of "relief dollars" have yet to reach the people still affected by its aftermath. In fact, as Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas explain, the recipients of aid have largely been big businesses and international NGOs.
Three years ago today, on December 27, 2008, the Israeli Defense Force launched Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. The offensive left a trail of death and destruction in its wake, including hundreds dead, thousands displaced, and nearly the entire 1.5 million-person population traumatized and hungry. In the years since the bombing stopped and tanks rolled through agricultural fields, recovery has been slow.
According to a local proverb, bad news arrive arrives fast. So it was with the announcement that Brazilian president Dilma Rouseff will end the popular and effective One Million Cisterns Program in the country’s semi-arid regions.
Despite being denied, again, title to the land on which they have labored, there is no quit in this group of women from El Estribo.
As UN negotiators sat in their air conditioned rooms during the last official day of the United Nations climate negotiations, I had a chance to visit a community in Pateque, Mozambique. I spoke with members of the National Peasants Union (UNAC), a member organization of the Via Campesina. They described the ways they have been impacted by climate change: the summer is hotter than they can ever remember, and they showed me large tracts of empty land where the sun had burned many of their crops (including tomatoes and cucumbers).
Janaina Stronzake is a youth leader within Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) – the largest peasant movement in Latin America with over 1.5 million members.
On December 10, 2011, the Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH) will celebrate 20 years of human rights promotion and defense in Haiti. A partner of Grassroots International, POHDH is a non-partisan association of eight non-profit, non-governmental Haitian rights organizations bound by shared beliefs in human rights (individual and collective), democracy, and public education around the issues of social, political, and cultural rights.
A critical aspect of fostering progressive social movements is a funder’s ability to monitor and evaluate (M&E) the social change process, while learning from partners on the ground as well as from each other. Over 28 years of accompanying progressive social movements, Grassroots International, an international development and human rights funder dedicated to supporting social movements in the Global South, continues to hone its ability to monitor and evaluate social change. From Grassroots’ perspective, a strong monitoring and evaluation process is critical to strengthening the grantmaking process and equally as important in building relationships with partners and grantees. M&E strengthens grantmaking in a number of ways, including:
On Sunday, December 4, food justice activists and occupiers from as far away as Colorado, Iowa, Maine and Upstate New York joined together for the Occupy Wall Street Farmers’ March in New York’s Zuccotti Park.
Among the speakers was Jim Goodman, from the Family Farmer Defenders in Wisconsin – a Grassroots International grantee and ally, and a member of the Via Campesina. Earlier in the year, Jim and Family Farm Defenders helped organize the Tractorcade to Madison, Wisconsin to show support for organized labor and the right of unions to collective bargaining. Here, he outlines the problems posed by industrial agriculture and the solution of food sovereignty in his first "mic check" speech.
