Grassroots International and the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil are supporting new projects to develop independent news sources that tell the workers’ and peasants’ side of the story.
Flavio Barbosa, who organizes with Grassroots International partner the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Ceará, Brazil, stopped by our offices in Boston last week. He shared a solidarity message from the MST to immigrants and refugees facing persecution in the United States and at the border. As he states in the video, "People should be free to live and choose a place where they can be well with their family."
In 2017 Grassroots International launched the Global Peasant Solidarity Movement Building Initiative, a series of projects coordinated in collaboration with our partner the Landless Workers Movement/ Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST). This initiative, now in its second year, supports international social movements as they strengthen the infrastructure of regional learning centers, independent media production and popular communications trainings, political education, and global solidarity.
The second year under Brazil’s parliamentary coup is now underway. Despite the political corruption and backlash against social movements, Grassroots International partners refuse to accept the dismantling of previous gains and are creating new systems to survive.
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.
The Landless Workers Movement (MST) has had an active presence in the Governador Valadares region and in other areas along the Doce River. They began organizing people who had been affected by the dam disaster, people who had suffered the consequences including job loss and lack of clean water.
The new government in Brazil is unrolling austerity policies that are eroding working families’ political gains. In this interview, a member of the MST reflects on the danger and potential of this current moment, highlighting opportunities to build alternatives to capitalism as the current economic system flounders.
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.
A version of this piece originally appeared on the Landless Workers Movement’s website. English translation was done by Grassroots International. Peasants from more than 70 countries will gather in Derio, in the Basque Country, between July 16 and 24, where the...
More than 50 Brazilian organizations and social movements working on issues related to the environment, human rights, workers' rights, indigenous peoples and traditional peoples and communities have filed a "Letter in defense of the historic position of Brazil on forest offsets " with the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is in reaction to an attempt to enable the use of forests in offsets, a measure seen as a false solution to the challenge of climate change.
A group made up of Brazilians, North Americans, Puerto Ricans and other nationalities who are part of the "Friends of the MST" (Landless Workers Movement), gathered on the morning of Thursday, June 8 in front of the Brazilian Consulate in Boston on Purchase Street with banners, calling for the departure of President Michel Temer.
The Brazilian political crisis and ensuing violence have intensified rapidly since the institutional coup of August 31, 2016. At Grassroots, we are receiving regular reports from our partners in Brazil listing incidents of attacks, arrests and even assassinations of land rights activists in a wave of right-wing aggression
On May 10, hundreds of community members, climate justice supporters, and grassroots organizations gathered with Grassroots International and the Boston Public Library to share stories and hear words of wisdom from international Climate Justice leaders.
In early May, small-scale farmers traveled from all over Brazil to bring their goods to the second National Fair of Agrarian Reform in São Paulo organized by Grassroots International Partner the Landless Workers Movement (MST).
Through the Climate Justice Initiative campaign (CJI), Grassroots International is raising money to invest in community-led programs that boost climate resilience and provide critical support to movements that are leading the charge for climate justice.