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Advances on the Journey to Food Sovereignty and Human Rights

By: Jonathan Leaning | Dezembro 19, 2013

This last year has seen many advances around the globe for communities and activists pushing to regain their fundamental human rights to land, water, and food. As we now approach the end of 2013, we take this opportunity a look back at some of the accomplishments that have marked the year. In spite of the great challenges—and seemingly insurmountable odds—there is much to celebrate. Below are some of many highlights from the last year.

Winning land for formerly landless farmers in Brazil
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If we rely on corporate seed, we lose food sovereignty

By: Grassroots International | Abril 2, 2013

Thousands of small farmers joined students, activists, unionists , human rights advocates and others at the World Social Forum in Tunisia last week. Among the many demonstrations and calls for action, the plea for seed sovereignty resonated with the peasant organizers who have seen their lands and livelihoods threatened by the “Green Revolution” and the incursion of industrial agriculture.
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Preparations Underway for the World Social Forum-Free Palestine

By: Mina Remy | Outubro 22, 2012

For the past year, Stop the Wall and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (both Grassroots International partners) have been working diligently with their Palestinian and Brazilian allies to fulfill the call issued in 2011 at the World Social Forum in Dakar. Then, participants expressed a desire to hold a thematic World Social Forum to explore ongoing social injustice in the occupied Palestinian territories; and to formulate an international response from the peoples of the world since states have either been unwilling or unable to provide pathways toward a just peace.
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G20-Agriculture: Hundreds of organizations say STOP farm land grabbing

By: Carol Schachet | Junho 22, 2011

Grassroots International joined nearly 500 other organizations around the world in signing the “Dakar Appeal Against Land Grabbing.” The appeal, originally drafted at the World Social Forum in Dakar in February 2011, calls upon governments to immediately cease all massive land grabs and return the plundered land to communities.
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International Social Movements’ Statement of Solidarity with Women’s Struggles

By: Sara Mersha | Março 8, 2011

In advance of International Women’s Day, several organizations representing various social movements around the world – many of them Grassroots International partners, grantees, and allies – co-wrote a “Letter of Solidarity with the Struggle of Women in the World.” We are reposting the text below:
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We Are the Solution: Celebrating African Family Agriculture!

By: Nikhil Aziz | Março 2, 2011

According to Grassroots International ally Fahamu, “Agriculture… remains the main source of income of a rural population generally estimated at 70% of the total population… [W]omen remain an essential link in agricultural production, accounting for 70% of food production, managing nearly 100% of processing activities, responsible for about 50% of the maintenance of the family herds and also responsible for some 60% of sales activities in the markets.” Any solutions to the problems of African agriculture, therefore, must include women. In fact, African women are saying, “We Are the Solution.”
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“Pourquoi la campagne”: Via Campesina Africa launches Campaign to End Violence against Women at 2011 World Social Forum in Dakar

By: Nikhil Aziz | Fevereiro 23, 2011

In 2008, I was privileged to attend the 5^th international conference of Grassroots International partner the Via Campesina, in Matola, Mozambique. The Via, a global movement representing over 150 million peasants and other small producers on 5 continents, has been the leading voice for the rights of small farmers and farmworkers as well as other small producers and has led global campaigns for agrarian reform, against free trade and for climate justice. At its 2008 conference, however, it launched another global campaign that a lot of people don’t yet know about. This is the Global Campaign to End Violence against Women.
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New Scramble for Africa

By: Nikhil Aziz | Fevereiro 16, 2011

It is the tradition at World Social Forums (WSF) to focus a considerable amount of time, energy, resources and attention on issues faced by people in the host region and country. The 2011 World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal that I had the privilege of attending was no different. Africa and African issues suffused the WSF throughout the forum.

One of these issues was the massive land grabs that are taking place all across the continent. Appropriately called the New Scramble for Africa, it is eerily similar to the mad rush by European colonial powers during the last quarter of the 19^th century to divide Africa up among them.
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Peasants from La Via Campesina join the World Social Forum opening march

By: Grassroots International | Fevereiro 8, 2011
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The Popular Struggle at the Heart of the Capitalist Crisis

By: Carol Schachet | Julho 6, 2010

The former capital of capitalism lies in ruins. The fourth richest city in the world in the 1940s, Detroit, East-Central U.S.A., has become a graveyard of buildings and factories. The Michigan Central Train Station symbolizes the city's crisis: inaugurated in 1913 and abandoned since 1988, the eighteen-story train station with hundreds of broken windows dominates the skyline and continually reminds one that of the devastation that is Detroit.
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Grassroots International and Partners at the USSF in Detroit

By: Alisa Pimentel | Junho 25, 2010

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.
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350 or Toast! “There is no Planet B”

By: Nikhil Aziz | Outubro 24, 2009

And, the answer is...350. That is 350 parts per million of Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere, the upper limit for sustainability of life, human life anyway. The question, however, is why are more -- not less -- Americans not convinced about the dangers of global warming and climate change in 2009 than in 2006? A new poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press released yesterday, found some alarming downward trends. Only 35 percent of Americans see global warming as a serious problem, and about 57 percent believe there is solid evidence that the earth is getting warmer.
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Climate Justice Now!

By: Nikhil Aziz | Fevereiro 12, 2009

Climate Change is big business. Literally! Many corporations, including some of the worst polluters, are salivating at the prospects of potentially vast sums of money that could very well come their way in the name of saving the planet. Climate justice activists, including indigenous peoples, are rightly worried that in the rush to "save the planet" governments and international institutions (including the World Bank, for example) will once again put profits before people.

Photo courtesy of Sandra Yu, Detroiters for Environmental Justice
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“Nobody, No, Nobody is Gonna Rain on My Parade!”

By: Nikhil Aziz | Fevereiro 5, 2009

"I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer; nobody, no, nobody is gonna rain on my parade!"

I remembered the lyrics of this song, first sung by Barbra Streisand I think, as we marched – some 100,000 of us – in a torrential downpour through the streets of Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon in the Brazilian state of Pará. It was the Opening March of the 2009 World Social Forum. Despite the rain, the enthusiasm of the crowds was contagious.
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Indigenous Peoples Call On Us To Heed Their Call To Save The Amazon

By: Maria Aguiar | Janeiro 27, 2009

Nikhil Aziz, Grassroots International's Executive Director is in Brazil this week attending the World Social Forum (WSF), which is happening in Belem in the Amazon region of Brazil. For four days before the WSF our partner, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) did a special site visit to show international visitors including members of media the destruction that has been brought about by the agribusiness expansion in the Amazon region. They traveled through the southern part of Para state and saw the impacts of mining, logging and hydroelectric projects on the Amazon and its people.
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Another World is Possible; Another US is Necessary – the United States Social Forum

By: Nikhil Aziz | Julho 3, 2007

“Our Youth is not the Future, Our Youth is the Present” – Julian Moya, Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), Albuquerque, New Mexico
“We cannot choose the historical conditions we find ourselves in, but we can choose how we respond to them” – Ajamu Baraka, Director, U.S. Human Rights Network, Atlanta, Georgia
These two quotes, among many other hopeful messages I heard at the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) from June 27 to July 1, 2007 in Atlanta epitomized for me the USSF – what it stands for and envisions in terms of a different kind of United States. Both represent the truth embedded in the official slogan of the USSF – Another World is Possible; Another US is Necessary.
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Join Grassroots International at the United States Social Forum, Atlanta, June 27-30

By: Carol Schachet | Junho 27, 2007

Please join Grassroots International at the United States Social Forum, Atlanta, June 27-30, 2007. The US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression, more than a collection of local solutions. It's an important moment to further build the global movement for social justice.
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U.S. Social Forum

By: Carol Schachet | Maio 3, 2007

Another World is Possible - Another U.S. is Necessary!
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Highlights of the 2nd Social Forum of the Americas

By: Maria Aguiar | Fevereiro 7, 2006

Recuerdos de la tierra Bolivariana! Memories from the land of Simón Bolívar!

We made our way from the Maiquetia airport by way of a 3 hour bus ride on winding roads through the Venezuelan Andes and arrived in Caracas on Monday evening - only 16 hours after leaving Boston! The excitement of the Social Forum of the Americas could already be felt on the streets of Caracas. Thousand of people had begun arriving from distant corners of South, Central and North America and even some from Europe. Some came by air, but many more came by bus, traveling many miles and many hours to be able to participate in this incredible gathering of people from urban and rural community organizations, social movements — including networks working on trade issues, small farmers and landless workers, indigenous peoples, industrial and service workers, women, youth and students, housing and homeless groups.
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Building a Better Future with Grassroots Policy at the World Social Forum

By: Carol Schachet | Janeiro 27, 2006

Hola from the World Social Forum!
I find myself once again sitting in the hotel lobby after a long day of exciting presentations and activity. Today is the second day of the Forum and it feels like it is now in full swing. The streets are more crowded, more cultural tents are up, street vendors have flooded the plazas and, following a rainy start, the sun is out.
So, too, is the work that we came here to do coming into full attention. Following yesterday's atmosphere of anticipation and hope, participants are now moving into deeper discussions of reflection, analysis and proposals for the future.
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