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].
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.
Two of the fiercest Native battles in the Americas today are closely connected. They are led by the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota and by the Lenca people in Honduras, organized through the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).
Some of our partners and allies from Oaxaca, Mexico have written a letter of solidarity addressing the struggles happening here in the United States in the Sioux Nation's territories at Standing Rock, ND. Below is the full letter. The original version of this piece appeared in Espacio Estatal en Defensa del Maíz Nativo de Oaxaca.
In September 2016, Grassroots International and our colleagues at IDEX participated in an amazing learning exchange in Brazil.
Hurricane Matthew made a direct hit on Haiti on October 4, pounding the island nation with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph. The first Category 4 storm to hit Haiti in more than 50 years, the cyclone assaulted the precarious infrastructure and flooded the denuded countryside. As Rosnel Jean Baptiste from Tet Kole explains: "Haiti is a very vulnerable country -- and because of our vulnerability hurricanes do not pass by without doing terrible damage."
Residents of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North and South Dakota say they were never consulted about an oil pipeline. Now they’re fighting back.
Our partner PAPDA joined a delegation of organizations for a meeting on June 29, 2016 with high-level members of the Prime Minister Cabinet and the Minister of Agriculture in Haiti. They discussed the reaction to a letter sent by dozens of NGOs, including Grassroots International, on May 27 to the USDA and USAID calling for the cancellation of the planned USDA shipment of 500 metric tons of peanuts to Haiti.
The USDA is planning to ship 500 metric tons of dry-roasted U.S. peanuts to Haiti to feed schoolchildren this fall. Ask Haitian peanut farmer St. Abel Pierre her opinion, and she’ll tell you: she’s worried, and she isn’t alone.
Since the Brazilian Senate voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff last month, the country of Brazil has made a sharp turn to the right (politically). Millions of Brazilians have taken to the streets in protest of the impeachment proceedings (calling them an administrative coup) and demanding that democracy be restored to their nation.
Below are 12 things you should know about what is happening in Brazil now.
Right wing forces in Brazil are using all kinds of sneaky tricks to remove the democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff and take power. They have the backing (both official and unofficial) of major corporations, the Brazilian elite and the media (especially the Globo Network who monopolizes media in Brazil.)
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.
Grassroots International has the privilege of working with some very courageous women working on the frontlines of human rights defense. One such woman is Yasmín López, 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 Women’s Regional Commission of La Vía Campesina–Central America, and one of the first women-led peasant organizations formed in Honduras with the explicit objective of reclaiming women’s land rights.