Solidarity Notes, October 2019: Creating Alternatives
In this issue of Solidarity Notes you’ll learn about how Grassroots International’s partners and the movements they are part of are creating alternatives to combat injustice around the world.
Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) | Page 2 sur 4
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Imprisoned: Inside the Politics of Control and Resistance
From Brazilian mass movement building to pinpoint alternatives and retain the countryside, to Honduran reclamation of natural resources through food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate justice, to relentless Palestinian efforts of upholding international law and defending human rights, people are challenging destructive political orders. Doing so is a collective act of resilience and resistance, ‘grabbing back’ in order to move forward in uncertain times.
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Voices from the Via: Attendees from International Conference Share Thoughts
Grassroots International was honored to be in attendance at the VIIth International Conference of La Via Campesina and gathered some of our partners' perspectives and thoughts about the conference and their work in the below photo blog.
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Somber Commemorations in Gaza Fuel Movement Building
In Palestine, the 50-year anniversary of Israeli occupation and decade of near-total blockade in Gaza is a time of looking back on difficult historical moments in which rights enjoyed in most parts of the world vanished. At the same time, it is an opportunity to look forward to a future in which they will be restored and advanced. Even though states and political parties have continually neglected such a political project, social justice movements inside and outside of Palestine are acting as its guardians.
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Hunger Strike Over, the Work to Free Palestinian Prisoners Continues
Abdul-Razeq is the Administrative Director of Grassroots International's partner organization, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees. He was arrested by Israeli forces at midnight on May 24 from his home, in front of his family. Abdul-Razeq was brought to an Israeli jail where he is still being held under administrative detention.
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Commemoration of Palestinian Land Day
Palestinian Land Day serves both to commemorate the historical events of March 30, 1976 and to draw attention to the struggles that Palestinians still face because of Israeli aggression. After the calamitous wars of 1948 and 1967 robbed Palestinians of...
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Celebrating and Funding Women’s Leadership Around the World
We support projects that promote women’s leadership and that lift up the struggles of indigenous and peasant women around the world. In celebration of International Women’s Day (and every day!), here are some of the projects we are proud to have supported recently…
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Climate Change and Economic Challenges in Palestine
Food sovereignty is the major challenge in Palestine. The movement and export restrictions, the long waits while tomatoes and strawberries sour in the hot sun, is 70% better in the West Bank [than in Gaza].
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For the Love of the Land: Building Food Sovereignty in Palestine
We are meeting with a longtime Grassroots International partner organization, the Union of Agricultural Workers Committee (UAWC). UAWC focuses on building sovereignty for men, women and youth, farmers and the poor.
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Palestinian Women Develop Cooperatives and Self-Determination
The Women's Empowerment Project is focused on solving the issues of poverty in Palestine by providing women with the proper resources that are necessary to produce and market goods through the formation of local cooperatives.
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Celebrating Mothers from the Movements
This Mother’s Day we celebrate three women who find the courage to overcome the great adversity they face as they work to improve the lives of their families and of their communities. Juslene, Esperanza and Samiha are three inspiring mothers who, working with Grassroots International’s partners in Haiti, Honduras and Palestine, are key leaders within their communities.
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On Palestinian Land Day, the Catastrophe Continues
Today is Land Day in Palestine. It’s a day when Palestinians mark with protest the continual expropriation of their land. There is a lot to protest since Palestinians have been losing land for 68 years. For Palestinians, the year 1948 is the year of the Nakba (or catastrophe) during which 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes, and land and hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed. 1967 marks the year when the state of Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, and Sinai in Egypt. This year is known to Palestinians as the Naksa (or grief). Today, Israel continues with relentless plans to annex the Jordan Valley for illegal settlements.
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Supporting Water Rights Around the World
March 22nd is International World Water Day and it serves as a reminder that water has not yet become a human right, and that millions continue to be denied access to water or have difficulty obtaining a fresh supply on a daily basis.
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What We Celebrate from Paris: 14 Moments and Connections for a Stronger Global Climate Justice Movement
In a previous blog, we shared our critiques of the Paris climate agreement, and analysis of what took place. In this photo blog, we share some of the moments and lessons that demonstrate what Grassroots International celebrates from what took place in Paris – the clarity and strength of social movements on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and in the forefront of struggle to expose false solutions and promote real solutions to achieve climate justice. We were honored to be in that space with our Global South partners, US and other international allies, making connections across geographies and issues – these relationships are a key part of what it will take to heal and cool the planet, while developing deep resilience to the shocks and slides to come.
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Land and Ocean Grabs Not the Solution to Climate Change
When Hiba Al-Jibeihi stepped off her flight in Paris in early December, it was her first time outside the occupied Palestinian territories where she had lived all of her 24 years. She wasn't quite sure how she would relate to her fellow international social movement delegates in parallel meetings to the climate negotiations taking place during the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21). The daughter of a sheep breeder and teacher, Hiba works as an advocacy officer for the Union of Agricultural Works Committees, a well-organized group of small-scale farmers in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
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Climate Justice and Palestine: The New Intersectionality
On February 9, 2016, the US Supreme Court in a troubling example of shortsighted hubris halted Obama’s latest climate change resolutions which had emerged from the December Paris Agreement on global warming, thus also threatening commitments made by other top polluters, India and China. While China has now surpassed the US as the number one polluter, the decades of fossil fuel use by the US stills makes us the largest contributor to the climate crisis. The decision to freeze the resolutions which sought to decrease greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants until legal challenges are resolved, threatens to imperil an already inadequate approach to climate change.
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Palestinian Farmers Push for Control of Water
Water is life. Unfortunately, it is increasingly used as a weapon. And it can be a deadly one when political conflict meets drought.
For decades the Israeli government has had varying degrees of legal and coercive control over the Palestinian water supply. Eighty-five percent of Palestinian water resources are controlled by Israelis and all-too-often, wells and other agricultural projects are demolished or confiscated.
The result is a gaping inequity: Israelis have swimming pools, and Palestinians can barely survive.
The average Israeli uses 300 liters of water per day, but Palestinians are limited by bureaucracy and lack of access to 30-70 liters – and the World Health Organization recommends a minimum 100 liters per day.
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Road to Climate Justice Goes through Palestine
Among the thousands of activists gathered in Paris as part of the Peoples Climate Summit, Hiba Al-Jibeihi represented multiple movements -- gender justice, land rights, food sovereignty, Palestinian human rights and, of course, climate justice. She wore the flags of the Via Campesina (a Grassroots International partner) and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (a Grassroots International partner and member of the Via Campesina). Here she talks about the importance of bringing together all the threads that lead to justice and peace.
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One Year after Assault, the Disaster in Gaza Continues
One year ago today, the 51-day campaign of bombing, tank fire and all-out destruction by the Israeli military on Gaza finally ended. The 51 days of darkness euphemistically dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” were the third and most deadly round in a series of violent assaults on Gaza.
It is truly difficult, perhaps impossible to imagine life in Gaza, then and now, for the 1.8 million people who live there. First of all, there is the trauma.
“This is not about people who were killed, it is about us who were waiting for death every minute,” said Dr. Mona El-Farra to Grassroots International supporter and author Alice Rothschild during her recent visit to Gaza. Dr. El-Farra is the director of the Red Crescent Memorial Hospital that was bombed during the attacks.