Detroit USSF Workshops

The following are workshops submitted as part of the D2D coordination.  If any part of the information below is not correct, please email us with changes/edits to DetroitandDakar@gmail.com  Please also update speakers listings and other relevant information.

D2D Scheduled WORKSHOPS for U.S. Social Forum in Detroit

June 22 – 27, 2010

 

Workshop Title/Track

Description & Organization

Speakers

Venue

 

Wednesday, June 23rd 10:00 am

 

 

WSFM & GFMD

Migration & Displacement

The World Social Forum on Migration (WSFM) in Ecuador and Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) in Mexico: 2 critical global mobilizations this year and their implications for US Immigration Reform

International migrant leaders and organizers of these forums this year will discuss them and their implications for US immigration reform.

Unlisted

 

Contact person: Colin Rajah crajah@nnirr.org

Cobo Hall: DO-7A

 

 

Wednesday, June 23RD 1:00 pm

 

 

Building a Movement to Combat Increased US Militarism

 

Militarism

 

Discuss building an unstoppable US movement against militarism and militarization at home and interference abroad. Bring your strategy and campaign ideas to this open discussion about how to build a permanent anti-militarism movement that transcends "specific war" anti-war movements.

 

Alliance for Global Justice

 Unlisted

 

Contact person: Chuck Kaufman

chuck@afgj.org

 

Cobo Hall: D3-19

 

Building a Movement to Combat Increased US Militarism

Militarism

Discuss building an unstoppable US movement against militarism and militarization at home and interference abroad. Bring your strategy and campaign ideas to this open discussion about how to build a permanent anti-militarism movement that transcends "specific war" anti-war movements.

Alliance for Global Justice

Unlisted

Contact person: Chuck Kaufman

chuck@afgj.org

Cobo Hall: D3-19

 

Thursday, June 24TH   10:00 am

 

 

Stop Firestone: Building an international solidarity campaign for worker rights, environmental justice and corporate accountability

 

International Solidarity

Organizing a Labor Movement for the 21st Century: crisis and opportunities. International Solidarity and Responsibility: building a unified response to global crises.

Using the example of a campaign targeting Firestone, this workshop focuses on building international solidarity campaigns to hold corporations accountable for labor and environmental abuses.

 

International Labor Rights Forum & IPS (Submitted)

Jubilee

Emira Woods (IPS)

Daniel and Biomah Flomo (Liberia)

&  a rep from Green Advocates (Liberia)

 

Contact person: Timothy Newman

tim.newman@ilrf.org

TWW: 3

 

Globalization, Criminalization and Managed Migration: Root Causus and Immigrant Rights

 

Migration & Displacement

Trade agreements and globalization, border militarization and criminalization of immigrant communities, and managed migration policies around the world exploit migrant workers and violate our rights.

Unlisted

 

 Contact person: Colin Rajah crajah@nnirr.org

WSU Old Main: 1133

 

The Growing Global Movement for a Solidarity Economy

 

International Solidarity

Join in a discussion with leaders of RIPESS, an intercontinental solidarity economy network, about how the solidarity economy is growing throughout the world.

 

 RIPESS (Intercontinental Solidarity Economy Network)

unlisted

 

Contact person: Emily Kawano

emily@populareconomics.org

UAW Building: Mustang

Gender Militarism and US Corporate Violence in Oil Producing States

 

Gender

Militarism

 

This workshop will focus on the militarisation of the oil producing region of the Niger Delta, Nigeria in order to protect the interests of US multinational oil companies and Nigerian political elite. It is hoped that through the discussion we will be able to identify common factors and build solidarity links between grassroots activists on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

Priority Africa Network

Fahamu co-sponsoring

Emem Okon (Nigeria)

 

Contact person: Sokari Ekine

sokari@blacklooks.org

 

Cobo Hall: O2-40

 

Housing and Land Rights: Lessons Learned and Next Steps

 

Migration & Displacement

Housing is an essential human right that is often seen by the government as just another commodity. Fortunately, this issue has mobilized many struggles around the world that are fighting for justice and equality on the land issue and beyond. The intent of this workshop is to link international movements for land and housing with domestic efforts within the United States. Also, we hope to explore different models for “movement support.” This panel will feature brief presentations and break out sessions to discuss areas such as 1) direct action in the US 2) legal support and 3) international solidarity work regarding housing and land rights

 

Center for Constitutitonal Rights

Wendy Pekeur & Sarah Claason, General Secretary and President of Sikhule Sonke in the Western Cape, South Africa

 

 

Contact person: Laura Raymond

lraymond@ccrjustice.org

Cobo Hall: D2-14

Women struggling against militarization and violence against women in war situation

 

Gender

Militarism

International Solidarity and Responsibility: building a unified response to global crises. Presentation of World March of Women (WMW) and actions in Colombia and Congo Democratic Republic, in the framework of the WMW Third International Action.

 

World March of Women

Unlisted

 

Contact person: Alessandra Ceregatti

alessandra@marchemondiale.org

 

Cobo Hall: W2-65

 

Crossing the Color Line: Alliance Building for Immigrants Rights and Racial Justice

 

International Solidarity

Migration & Displacement

Panelists will discuss the work of their organizations in building cross-racial alliances. The focus will be on distilling the groups’ alliance-building methodologies, factors for success, educational and training activities organized and curricula used, lessons learned, and future plans.

Gerald Lenoir BAJI
Mónica Hernández, Highlander
Bill Chandler, MIRA
Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (invited)

 

Contact person: Gerald Lenoir

gerald@blackalliance.org

Cobo Hall: D3-18

 

Confronting the US War Against Haiti

Militarism

This workshop will address the history, aims, and objectives of US imperial aggression against Haiti and what US based activists can do to resist it and support the popular people’s movement in Haiti.

Haiti Action Committee

Frantz Jerome with the Haiti Action Committee

 

Contact person: Kali Akuno

kaliakuno@gmail.com

Cobo Hall: W1-51

 

 

Protecting Community Rights and Resources

Economic justice

Land rights

 

For countries rich in natural resources like oil, gas, and minerals, economic dependence on these resources is often accompanied by poverty, inequality, environmental devastation, human rights abuses, and poor labor practices. For citizens to combat the resource curse, they need to know how much corporations are paying their government to extract natural resources.  Now to find out about an exciting campaign to pass a landmark bill that will close a critical gap in information available to citizens and allow them to push their governments towards more environmentally and socially responsible practices.

Justice in Nigeria Now

Publish What You Pay

Dimieari Von Kemedi, Director-General of the Due Process and e-Governance Bureau of Bayelsa State, Nigeria, Rachel Ackoff of the Sierra Club’s Labor, Workers’ Rights, and Trade Program, Isabel Munilla, Director of the US-Publish What You Pay Coalition, and Laura Livoti of Justice in Nigeria Now

Contact person: Rachel Ackoff

rachel.ackoff@sierraclub.org

Wayne County Community College: 349

 

 

 

Thursday, June 24TH   1:00

 

 

The Politics of Exploiting Need: AGRA, the Gates Foundation, and the Food Crisis

 

Land Rights & Food Sovereignty  

This popular theater workshop will critique the Gates Foundation and Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and help the group create democratic, sustainable alternatives.

 

Community Alliance for Global Justice (Food First co-sponsoring)

Forum for African Immigrant Associations

Mamadou Goita, Bill Aal, Travis English, and Heather Day, from CAGJ/AGRA Watch, and Annie Shattuck and Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First

 

Contact person: Heather Day

waal@toolsforchange.org

UAW Building: Taurus

 

Food Sovereignty: A Building Block for People’s Sovereignty

Climate Change

Land Rights & Food Sovereignty

Speakers from Palestine, Haiti, Detroit and Mississippi show how only Food Sovereignty ensures food security for urban and rural communities in different places.

 

Grassroots International

Dr. Taha Rafaie from the Union of Agricultural Work Committees,  Palestine

Camille Chalmers of the Haitian Platform for Alternative Development- Haiti, 

Malik Yakini or other representative from the Detroit  Black Community  Food Security Network 

Ben Burkett of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the National Family Farm Coalition, Mississippi 

 

Contact person: Maria M. Aguiar

maguiar@grassrootsonline.org

Woodward Academy: 1443

Mobilizing Across the Diaspora for Change: Prospects for Latin America and the Caribbean

Displacement, Migration and Immigration. International Solidarity and Responsibility: building a unified response to global crises This panel will explore some of the most pressing issues defined by and affecting Afro-descendant communities in Latin America and the Caribbean, with panel 2 focusing on Haiti’s reconstruction. Discussion will focus on solidarity with civil society, South-South partnerships, travel and advocacy.

TransAfrica Forum and

Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti

Mario Joseph, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti(Haiti)

& Representative of La Red Afrovenezolana (Venezuela)

 

Contact person: Nora Rasman

nrasman@transafricaforum.org

 

Cobo Hall: D3-23

 

Building Solidarity with Haiti’s Grassroots social movements

 

International Solidarity

International Solidarity and Responsibility: building a unified response to global crises Strategy session on how to build solidarity with Haiti’s grassroots.

 

Rising in Solidarity with Ayiti

Unlisted

 

Contact person: Toussaint Losier

toussaint.losier@gmail.com

Cobo Hall: W2-65

Building a Black Immigration Network

 

Migration& Displacement

This workshop will bring black immigrants and African Americans together to build a national network for just immigration reform and racial justice.

 

Black Alliance for Just Immigration

Priority Africa Network co-sponsoring

Gerald Lenoir, Black Alliance for Just Immigration

 

Contact person: Gerald Lenoir

gerald@blackalliance.org

Cobo Hall: DO-03A

 

D2D People’s Movement Assembly – EVERYONE INVITED

 

 

People’s Movement Assembly (PMA)

 

Prioritizing Africa & the African Diaspora Agenda from Detroit to Dakar (D2D)

This PMA brings together organizations and individuals to review historic challenges towards the people and the continent of Africa. This PMA will analyze multiple issues ranging from militarization, gender, land rights and food sovereignty, climate change, democracy and governance, health and HIV/AIDS and corporate accountability as relate to Africa and the African diaspora.

 

Priority Africa Network, Africa Action, Institute for Policy Studies(IPS) & the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)

Briggs Bomba Africa Action, Emira Woods, Institute for Policy Studies, Lieopllo Pheko, South Africa

 

 

Contact person: Nunu Kidane nunukidane@att.net

 

 

Cobo Hall: W2-69

 

Jubilee Economics and the Movement for International Debt Relief

Debt Cancellation

Explore the biblical origins and current vision of the international Jubilee Movement, campaigning to free those enslaved by unjust debt

Jubilee US

Hopewell Xwayani (ZIMCODD)

Contact person: Brooke Harper brooke@jubileeusa.org

Christ Church

 

Reparations for Climate Debt: Linking the Local and the Global

Debt Cancellation

U.S. and international activists will work with participants to build proposals on how to make reparations for ecological debts incurred through centuries of exploitative development.

Jubilee USA          

Contact person: Brooke Harper brooke@jubileeusa.org

TWW: 2

 

Migration and the Militarization of U.S. and European Borders: A Comparison and Contrast

 

Migration & Displacement

Militarization

The workshop will explore the similarities and differences between migration patterns to the U.S. and Europe and the border militarization policies of the United States and the European Union.

 

Priority Africa Network (PAN)

Francesca Menes,
Madjiguène Cissé,  Isabel Garcia,

 

Contact person: Gerald Lenoir

gerald@blackalliance.org

Cobo Hall: O2-40

 

Thursday, June 24  3:00 pm

 

 

Lessons from the Global Campaign to End South African Apartheid

International Solidarity

Explores structure, methods of the South African Anti-Apartheid movement, deriving lessons for similar movements in Palestine and elsewhere.

The Palestine Freedom Project

 Unlisted

 

Contact person:

greenhouse@palestinefreedom.org

WSU Old Main: O171

Cross-border Dialogue: Building Women’s Movements Across All Boundaries

 

Gender

International Solidarity

Dialogue with grassroots feminist organizers from the US, Indonesia, South Africa and Honduras about strategies for building powerful local-to-global women’s movements that prioritize gender-justice agendas.

 

Just Associates co-sponsor – Women of Color United

unlisted

 

Contact person: Margaret Mapondera

maggie@justassociates.org

Woodward Academy: 1437

International Financial Institutions and Climate Change: Community Impacts in the Congo

Climate Change

The environmental and social impact of the World Bank funded Inga Dam Project in the Congo. Highlighting civil society resistance

 

Africa Action Friends of the Congo co-sponsoring

Meryl Zendarski ( Africa Action), Maurice Carney ( Friends of the Congo)

 

Contact person: Briggs Bomba

briggs@africaaction.org

Wayne County Community College: 337

The New Africa Command and U.S. Military Involvement in Africa

 

Militarism

The workshop will examine the creation and missions of the new U.S. military command for Africa (Africom) and the impact of growing U.S. military involvement in Africa on the continent and on the United States.

 

African Security Research Project

IPS co-sponsoring

Daniel Volman, ACAS, Emira Woods, IPS

 

Daniel Volman

dvolman@igc.org

 

 

UAW Building: PRES

Women, Feminism, Economic Crisis, and the Solidarity Economy

 

Gender

Economic Justice

 

Feminist economists & activists discuss solidarity economy practices and institutions as providing transformative, feminist solutions to capitalism’s crises

 

International Association for Feminist Economics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ethel Cote (Canadian Community Economic Development Network, and coop developer in Canada and Africa) , Radhika Balakrishan (Director of Center for Global Leadership), Ann Ferguson (feminist philosopher/activist, U Mass Amherst), Julie Matthaei (co-founder and boardmember, U.S. Solidarity Economy Network), and Amy Bisno (Wellesley ’10

 

Contact person: Mai Perches

maimails@gmail.com

Woodward Academy:  1449

 

 

Thursday, June 24 3:30 – 5:30

 

 

Oil and Outrage Flare in Nigeria: Ending Global Climate Crime and Protecting Local health

Climate change

Economic justice

Gender

 

Life in the U.S. is partly fueled by oil extracted by U.S. companies like Chevron in Nigeria. Forty percent of Nigeria's oil is exported to the United States. Peaceful and militant resistance to oil company human rights and environmental abuses, like the constant flaring of gas are gaining power. In today's world, we understand the harm that these poison fires cause to local health, sustainability and the global climate. It is time to hold corporations accountable, end toxic flaring and create the conditions for peace for the 20 million residents of the Niger Delta. Join Laura Livoti, Founder of Justice in Nigeria Now (JINN), Sandy Cioffi, Director of Sweet Crude the movie and Omoyele Sowore of Sahara Reporters to learn how you can take concrete action to participate in global solidarity campaigns to end gas flaring in Nigeria, pass U.S. transparency legislation to hold all extractive industries accountable, and resolve the root causes of the unrest in Nigeria. You will have a special opportunity to see 20 minutes of the beautiful and award winning documentary Sweet Crude before its theatrical release and learn how you can bring the film and action campaign to your community.

Justice in Nigeria Now

Laura Livoti, JINN, Sandy Cioffi, Director of Sweet Crude the movie and Omoyele Sowore of Sahara Reporters

 

Contact person: Justice in Nigeria Now

abby@justiceinnigerianow.org

 

WSU Old Main: 1107

 

 

Friday, June 25th  10 am

 

 

Another Haiti Is Possible

Climate Justice: sustainability, resources and land. Strategies for Building Power & Ensuring Community Needs (housing, education, jobs, clean air…)

Hear first hand from Haitian activists about the role of popular movements in building a just, democratic Haiti out of the rubble of the earthquake.

 

PAPDA

Unlisted

 

Contact person: Camille CHALMERS

camillecha@yahoo.fr

Woodward Academy: 1435

 

Thursday, June 25th 1:00 pm

 

 

GM crops - the poisoned chalice: perspectives and victories from South Africa

Land Rights & Food Sovereignty

Environment

IDEX partner, Biowatch South Africa will present its recent legal victory against the State and Monsanto. Struggles for food sovereignty, biodiversity and sustainable agriculture in the Global South will be explored.

 

International Development Exchange (IDEX)  

Rajasvini Bhansali

vini@idex.org

&

Rose Williams, Biowatch (S. Africa)

 

Contact person: Rajasvini Bhansali

vini@idex.org

Cobo Hall: D3-23

Power Sharing Deals in Africa: Implications for Democracy - The Case of Zimbabwe and Kenya

Democracy & Governance

Power sharing deals in Africa, implications for democracy. Strengthening human rights based solidarity in shaping alternatives to elitist deals.

 

Africa Action

Hopewell Gumbo, Emira Woods, IPS & two more TBD

 

Contact person: Briggs Bomba

briggs@africaaction.org

WSU Student Center: 261

 

Dialogue with Activists from the Haitian Popular Movement

International Solidarity

This workshop will provide an open platform for US activists to dialogue with activists from the popular movement in Haiti and explore what the movement is doing to resist the current US occupation and rebuild the country.

 

Haiti Action Committee

 unlisted

 

Contact person: Kali Akuno

kaliakuno@gmail.com

Cobo Hall: O2-41

Support the Call of Haiti’s Grassroots for Reconstruction and the Return of President Aristide and democracy to Haiti

International solidarity

International solidarity with the Haitian grassroots movement which is organizing reconstruction and calling for Aristide’s return, despite US coups, UN occupation, and 10,000 NGOs.

Women of Color Global Women's Strike

 Unlisted

 

Contact person: Margaret Prescod

margaretprescod@crossroadswomen.net

Cobo Hall: O2-40

Funders’ Movement Assembly

For funders to explore concrete ways in which philanthropy can support social justice and deeper systemic change over the next five years.

Funders Network on Transforming the Global Economy (FNTG)

Unlisted

 

Contact person: Mark Randazzo

 

 

Friday, June 25 3:30 – 5:30 pm

 

 

From Food Crisis to Food Sovereignty: Proposals for Building a US Food Sovereignty Network

Skyrocketing rates of hunger, coupled with the economic crisis and worsening impacts of climate change, point to the need for a radically different food system. In response, international movements of peasants, farmworkers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, and others have united to form a powerful global campaign for food sovereignty calling for the right of people to control their own food and agricultural systems. This campaign was sparked by the realization that only through joining forces across borders can we confront the global powers that have hijacked the world’s food systems. While vibrant food movements abound throughout the US, much work remains to be done to connect our efforts here to this broader global campaign. Join this participatory strategizing session on the formation of a US food sovereignty network that links domestic and international social movements to transform the global food system. WhyHunger & US Working Group on the Food Crisis: www.usfoodcrisisgroup.org

Speakers: Ben Yahola, Mvskoke Food Sovereignty Initiative

Carlos Marentes, Via Campesina North America

Joann Lo, Food Chain Workers Alliance

Karen Washington, Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners

Rosalinda Guillen, Community to Community Development

 

 

Contact person: Christina Schiavoni christina@whyhunger.org

Food Justice Canopy at the USSF Village

 

Venue changed from:

WSU Old Main: 1114