SWOPblogger

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: August, 27, 2007
Contact:

Michael Leon Guerrero 310-7676160
Alexa Kasdan 646-400-2657

Grassroots Global Justice Delegation Travels to New Orleans to Support

International Tribunal and Survivor’s Assembly Tribunal Will Bring Together Representatives from Around the World to Hear Testimony from Katrina Survivor’s on US Government’s Human Rights Violations

Two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Grassroots Global Justice members will travel to New Orleans to provide logistical support for the International Tribunal and 2nd Survivor’s Assembly. The Tribunal, which is being organized by GGJ member group, the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, with support from other organizations, will bring together hurricane Katrina survivors, international delegations, expert witnesses, a team of human rights and civil rights prosecutors, and a panel of US-based and international judges. The international delegations will include government officials, scholars and advocates from around the world.

The Tribunal is being held to bring charges of racial discrimination and the denial of the right to return for more than 300,000 residents, mostly poor and black who have been unable to return to New Orleans since Katrina hit two years ago. The survivor’s testimony will highlight the discriminatory rebuilding and public assistance efforts post-Katrina, and will call into question government practices before and during the storm.

The Grassroots Global Justice delegation will include representatives from at least six different organizations from around the country including, Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) in Rhode Island, Fuerza Unida from San Antonio, TX, Community Voices Heard from New York City, Southwest Worker’s Union from San Antonio, Project South from Atlanta, GA, and the Labor Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles. The delegation will be providing logistical support for the tribunals and working in solidarity with the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund as well as many other organizations and volunteers from around the country.

This delegation is part of GGJ’s Gulf Coast Support Campaign and will further the campaign’s goals of supporting organizing work in the Gulf Coast and promoting education of GGJ member organizations about the issues in the post-Katrina Gulf Coast. GGJ is comprised of 60 grassroots organizations throughout the U.S. confronting the effects of corporate-led globalization including the elimination of public services, job loss, displacement, and environmental destruction. The alliance promotes human rights, peace and environmental sustainability nationally and internationally.
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Grassroots Global Justice
ggj@ggjalliance.org

424.772.6410
424.675.5419 FAX

Labels: GGJ, globalization, grassroots global justice, Hurricane Katrina, International Tribunal, Katrina, New Orleans

The G8 which stands for "The Group of 8," is a group made up of the 8 most powerful countries in the world that represent about 14 percent of the world population, but they account for nearly two thirds of the world's economic output.

That's 66% of world economic power held by only 14% of the population. Sounds bad right...well it is.

Wondering which governments/countries are in the G8?
"Will the governments of the power elite G8 come on down..."

Canada
France
Germany
Italy
Japan
Russia
the United Kingdom and of course last but certainly not least...
The United States Of America

How's that for your happy friday morning? We're in the mix.

This year the group has been meeting in Germany since June 6th and has finish today. To do what...not quite sure except it's probably okay to say that they are realizing their greedy dreams of world economic domination.

The G8 and its policies have been the culprits for poverty around the world, debt, free trade, pollution, AIDS not being cured (and then some), globalization and Imperialism, just to name a few.

Protesters gather there at every meeting to pressure the group to combat the problems they are creating.

Most of the media coverage doesn't surround the issues being debating. It's main focus is always on the protestors and the "violence of anarchists." Which is ridiculous obviosuly, how can a small number of unarmed people be violent against thousands of riot police fully armed with strong weaponry? Oh yes...anarchist carry rocks...

anyway - we need to hear the issues and the policies being debated. Unfortunately we only get the report after the fact. This year $60 million was promised to Africa and Iran also was urged to end their uranium enrichment program after that I can't understand it, everything seems to get a little or alot fuzzy.

As progressive people, we really need to get more informed on these policies and start coming up with our own solutions to poverty, imperialism, global capitalism.

We don't have to re-invent the wheel we just need to start.
Who's ready? Who's up for it?

The elite had to start somewhere right? Then so do we.

Read more ABQ Journal and IndyMedia.

Labels: G8, globalization, world poverty

This is a great example of popular education in action and a way to learn about globalization. Much thanks to the children and the innovatinve ways of the after school program of Tesuque Pueblo. This was in today's Journal Santa Fe Edition.

Tesuque after-school group sells sports bottles to buy rain gathering system

BY GINGER MCGUIRE Journal Staff Writer

TESUQUE PUEBLO — Being able to help people in Africa gives 11-year-old Lakeisha Moquino an warm feeling and a sense of accomplishment.

The fifth-grader said participants in Tesuque Pueblo’s afterschool program researched poor water conditions in the world and learned that the people of Africa are experiencing a shortage of clean drinking water.

“We saw that (the people of) Africa walk miles to get water,” she said.

Some 25 members of the after-school program, mainly elementary students, are participating in a leadership project called Tapping Water for the World. So far, by selling sport water bottles with the “Water for the World” logo, they’ve raised $1,700 to help build a rainwater harvesting system in Chad. The goal is to raise $2,500.

Robb Hirsch, director of the after-school program, said he is looking for donors to match the money collected. The total cost for a rainwater harvesting system is $5,000.

The money for the water project will be sent to Global Green USA, an affiliate of Green Cross International. Hirsch said the organization helps build school-based rainwater harvesting systems that capture, treat and recycle water.

A handful of the youth involved in the project made a presentation to Tesuque Pueblo Thursday, teaching their audience about the project and the importance of water conservation.
They hung posters with messages such as, “The world’s water needs are in our hands” and “Don’t waste water.”

Hirsch said the students involved had a big say in the type of project they would work on, and work on a new leadership project each school year.

Last year the students collected blankets and books for the homeless. The year before they worked on a “Be Alive, Don’t Drink and Drive” CD that was played on local radio stations.

While the youth in the afterschool program launched this year’s campaign, Hirsch said a number of organizations including the Tesuque education and environment department have been instrumental in the project.

The water bottles, which cost $5, are available at Tesuque Village Market and Camel Rock Casino. For more information, or to donate, call Robb Hirsch at 988-3364 or email him at info@ takeresponsibility.us.

Labels: globalization, jovenes, Santa Fe, Water, youth