1.- TAKE PART IN THE WORLD’S BIGGEST LESSON AND BE PART OF THE GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS!


The just ended Global Campaign for Education’s World Assembly in Sao Paulo, Brazil reiterated its commitment to the fight for quality education for all and to mobilise as many people as possible for this year’s Global Action Week.

On April 23 this year, children and adults from all over the world will be attempting to break the world record for the Largest Simultaneous Lesson. This event is taking part in over 85 countries and is part of the campaign to get every child and adult needing an education in the world into school by 2015. It is expected that a coalition of charities, trade unions, parents and citizens’ groups worldwide will be part of this historical Guinness World Record attempt.

The record attempt will be part of the celebrations that will be held all over the world to commemorate Global Action Week from April 21 -27 this year. It is hoped that this week will build on the past years celebrations and increase awareness of the plight of the millions of children and adults who never got a chance to go to school. Unable to read or write, they cannot defend their rights and are mostly trapped in a lifetime of poverty. Around the world there are over 72 million children out of school and 800 million illiterate adults.

It is incredibly easy to join in the world record attempt. If you want to take part, then you need to teach the lesson plan starting at either 4am GMT, 8am GMT or 3pm GMT on the 23rd of April. Details are contained in the Resource Pack.

For further details, please email questions to ICAE (Marcela Hernandez secretariat@icae.org.uy  and Adelaida Entenza oficina@icae.org.uy  )


2008 Campaign Materials and Downloads
http://www.campaignforeducation.org/action/2008/action_2008_materials.html 

 

2.- CONFINTEA VI National Reports: date for submission extended by one month

http://www.unesco.org/uil/en/nesico/confintea/confinteanVInreports.htm 

The National Reports on the Development and State of the Art of Adult Learning and Education in Preparation of CONFINTEA VI will help to draw an accurate picture of the complex realities of adult learning and education and identify key issues and messages to be drawn to the attention of the
International Conference.
In a message sent out to all National Commissions for UNESCO, the Director of UIL reiterated the invitation to Member States to use the preparation of national reports to create a national dialogue involving a wide range of stakeholders, including NGOs/CSOs, corporate institutions and the private
sector. He underlined that this process should be steered by a representative working group or committee, and a national workshop or conference should be held to validate the findings.

In response to requests from a number of National Commissions asking for sufficient time to engage in the activities underlined above, e.g. holding a national workshop, the date for submission of the reports was extended to the end of April 2008.

 

3.- "Women's Tribunal on Poverty"

The GCAP Feminist Task Force invites you to a "Women's Tribunal on Poverty" and the launch of the March 8th International Women’s Day Global Mobilization


Date: 28-February-2008
Time: 3:15 PM - 4:45 PM
Room: Church Center - Hardin Room (11th Fl.)

Parallel Event Details
Event ID: 740

The GCAP Feminist Task Force and partners will present the findings of international women's tribunals on poverty held in India, Egypt and Peru as part of the mobilization activities related to the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Oct. 17, 2007. The event will highlight the
intersections between race, class and gender, as well as the presenting the case of rural women.

The FTF will also launch the International Women’s Day Global Mobilization calling on governments around the world to invest in women and girls, to increase financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment and bring an end to the feminization of poverty.

For more details contact: RosaenCasa@aol.com  ana@icae.org.uy 
 

4.- GCAP Call to Action – General note in preparation for IWD.

International Women's Day

March 8, 2008

RosaenCasa@aol.com

The GCAP Feminist Task Force (FTF) is encouraging all partners and constituencies to promote International Women’s Day by taking action in their respective countries. On March 8th, under the leadership of the FTF, GCAP will highlight the centrality of gender equality to end poverty, the importance of investing in women and girls and calling for increased financing for advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. All GCAP partners are encouraged to join in this global mobilization.
The March 8th campaign will be global in scope with national and regional-specific demands to apply pressure on national, local and regional governments.

Key highlights of the campaign include:
• On February 28th at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations in New York, the FTF will launch the March 8th IWD campaign at their event highlighting the International Women’s Tribunals on Poverty. The event will mark the FTF’s fourth year participating in the CSW and calling on governments to end gender inequality and the feminization of poverty. Location: UN Church Center, 11th floor Harding room, 3:15 – 4:45pm, Feb.28th.
• In line with the CSW theme of “Financing for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment,” the FTF invites you to join in calling for investing in women and girls in order to achieve Millennium Development Goals 1 (poverty eradication) and 3 (gender equality).
• GCAP and the FTF will outline core global demands for IWD and we invite constituencies to identify their core demands for IWD and events to be posted on the www.InternationalWomensDay.com website.
• The GCAP e-campaign will be linked to the IWD website which will run from the www.whiteband.org and coalition sites.
Since 2005 and as part of GCAP, the Feminist Task Force has been putting forward a clear message:

The eradication of poverty cannot succeed without equality and justice for women.

While we prepare to celebrate the International Women’s Day on 8 March, we invite all GCAP colleagues to add their voices to this message and strengthen their efforts at national, regional and global level to ensure that gender equality becomes a reality and with it the better society we all dream of.
The E-Campaign:
The e-campaign will be a real and virtual global mass mobilization designed to reach local, national and/or global government officials. National and regional coalitions can add their specific demands to the main message so that messages sent to government officials are country and regionally-specific.
The March 8th campaign materials are designed to be simple and inexpensive for GCAP partners so that every person can take personal action by sending at the minimum an e-mail message. Anyone reading this message through a computer can proceed to send their e-postcard to a government official, decision-maker, colleague, or anyone of their choice.
Specific actions have been proposed to support GCAP partner participation in the March 8th campaign.

The menu of activities and actions include:
• E-cards, e-mails, SMS/text messages – send quick messages to local, national and global leaders. Use the templates on this website.

• Postcards and letter writing – Download the template and write letters and postcards to decision-makers.

• Banners – Use the “Gender Equality to End Poverty” logo to make a banner for your demonstration, political rally or organization.

• Website postings and links – Post links about IWD on your organization’s website and announce IWD on your webpage.

• Videos, films –GCAP will screen a bespoke photo video clip of GCAP women's actions with text inserted between approximately 10 images. This will be available for all to use at events on March 8th and on www.whiteband.org . (SARAH, CAN YOU VERIFY THIS?)

Ideas for actions on IWD:
• Organize a postcard writing campaign in your local area. Mail postcards to local and national government leaders.
• Organize a viewing of the IWD video or other film dealing with a particular women’s issue.
• Organize policy events to raise awareness and visibility!
• Organize a Women’s Tribunal on Poverty. Resources on how to run a tribunal can be provided.
• Organize rallies, demonstrations, public actions, policy panels and forums.
• Hold political and cultural events to raise awareness about the feminization of poverty.
Material for e-mailing and postcard/letter writing will be available for downloading on the GCAP website. Statistics and other substantive information is also available on the website through downloads and links to clip and paste in tailoring your message. Web links to government sites are also available to help you look for the right person to e-mail your message.
We encourage all partners to make a difference----think globally and act locally. Take action this International Women's Day. Speak out for women’s rights! Call for investing in women and girls! Gender Equality to End Poverty! Do your share to ensure a brighter future for women and girls. Join us in celebrating International Women’s Day.
The FTF looks forward to working hand in hand with national coalitions in bringing the messages of gender, poverty and inequality on March 8th. Please contact Ana Agostino (ana@icae.org.uy ) or Rosa Lizarde (rosaencasa@aol.com) of the FTF with any questions or concerns.

Resources

International Women's Day (IWD) is the global day celebrating and honoring women’s achievements around the world through diverse actions and activities, ranging from political rallies, policy forums, conferences, women's craft markets, art exhibits, theatrical performances as well as personal actions, such as participating in e-campaigns and more. The date is commemorated at the United Nations and designated in many countries as a national holiday. Annually on March 8th, thousands of events are held throughout the world to promote women’s visibility, gender equality and women’s empowerment.

For more information on IWD, please see the following links:
http://whiteband.org
http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/womday97.htm

IWD logos:
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/link.asp 

Government web links:
Home pages of UN Missions have links to federal government sites, including different ministries:
Click on: http://www.un.int/index-en/webs.html 

Go to your country UN Mission home page, look for “other links” or the federal government home page link.

GCAP FTF videos and logos:
We will have a link for a short March 8th video and Feminist Task Force logos to use in propaganda

 

5.- International Year of Languages 2008

m.elfert@unesco.org

The United Nations General Assembly has designated 2008 as the International Year of Languages and entrusted its coordination to UNESCO. This year’s International Mother Language Day, which has been celebrated annually on 21 February since 2000, marks the start of the International Year of Languages.

UNESCO invites governments, United Nations organizations, civil society organizations, educational institutions, professional associations and all other stakeholders to increase their own activities to foster respect for, promote and protect all languages, particularly those which are endangered, in all individual and collective contexts.

The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) is contributing to the International Year of Languages through a variety of activities in order to promote equity and social justice through access to quality basic education and lifelong learning. Many educational programmes in multilingual contexts fail because they do not reflect or respond to the learners’ linguistic development and learning needs. Language is one of the most important factors determining the success or failure of education programmes.

In the framework of International Mother Language Day and the International Year of Languages, the UIL was one of four UNESCO partners – in cooperation with the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) – behind the organization of an International Seminar on Literacy of Indigenous Youth and Adults held in Guatemala from 11 to 13 February 2008. Drawing on studies carried out in their respective countries, researchers from seven Latin American countries – Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru – met to discuss both the current literacy situation of indigenous populations and effective literacy practices in multicultural and multilingual contexts. The event’s participants included the Minister of Education from Guatemala, Ms Ana Ordóñez de Molina, and several NGOs, universities and other stakeholders. There is clear evidence that illiteracy rates among indigenous populations exceed the national average, and are particularly high among indigenous women and in rural areas. Even when progressive constitutions and legislation are developed to address the particular learning needs of indigenous youth and adults in multilingual contexts, very few of these are implemented. On the other hand, a number of literacy programmes have succeeded in integrating an intercultural and bilingual approach. The evolving concept of literacy has also had some impact on how indigenous youth and adults contribute to the development of Latin American societies. In the discussions, it became clear that literacy cannot be separated from other social processes and that interculturality implies collective rights and the sharing of power.

UIL is also completing an advocacy policy guide in favour of the use of African languages in education addressing the prevailing multilingualism. This evidence based guide is almost ready for publication and dissemination. Furthermore, a research report on mother tongue and multilingual education in Africa will be co-published with the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) in 2008. Together with ADEA, a ministerial forum on multilingualism and language use in education will be organized in the second half of the year.

Contact: Ulrike Hanemann (u.hanemann@unesco.org )
Christine Glanz (c.glanz@unesco.org )

For further information on the International Year of Languages (IYL):

UNESCO portal for the promotion of languages: www.unesco.org/en/languages
Coordinator of the IYL: Mr Mauro Rosi (unyl2008@unesco.org )

Please keep UNESCO informed of your initiatives in the field of languages and multilingualism. You will be contributing towards enlarging UNESCO’s network of committed partners. To submit your project for publication in the UNESCO's International Year of Languages list, please fill out the form on the web site cited above.

UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL)
Maren Elfert, Public Relations
Feldbrunnenstr. 58, D-20148 Hamburg, Tel.: +49-40-448041-17, Fax: +49-40-4107723, E-mail: m.elfert@unesco.org 
www.unesco.org/uil 
 

6.- Four hypothesis on a new World Social Forum

Dear friends,

I am sending you below a very provisional evaluation from the World Social Forum 2008. For a more organised and informed evaluation we need, of course, to collect much more information. But I felt that there are, already, very interesting elements to start a debate. That is why I put forward these first reflections.

Very warm greetings,
Antonio Martins

In few days, a very wide panorama of 2008 WSF will turn up. But it is already clear that the multicentric format evidenced the emergence of a new political culture and offers some clues on how post-capitalist future campaigns might be.

Antonio Martins

1. The biggest World Social Forum had the whole planet as venue.
In the very little office of the World Social Forum in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thiago Benicchio (28), Diego Azzi (26) and Marcella Alves (20) don’t take a break. Once the Global Day of Action finished, they have to pick up and identify the hundreds of little pieces that enable them to set the mosaic of what was last Saturday 26 January, the WSF in 2008.An email tells that the day started by noon in Australia, Japan and New Zealand, while Europe was sleeping and Latin America celebrated the night of Friday 25.The Arab world participation, as reported by the information found in the Internet, was amazing: in Indonesia, they organized a march towards the government palace; a pre-conference for peace in Afghanistan; some other activities in Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria and Turkey. Palestine went further on: marches organized in at least four cities claimed the world to act against Israel’s Gaza blockade. This same day numerous contacts were established and the members of the Forum who performed their activities in many other cities in this WSF2008 version were asked for solidarity. The work was carried out in a fully antifundamentalist manner. One of the main activities was the encounter between Israeli and Palestinian citizens opposed to occupation and blockade in Erez border region.
In the so called “Old World”, Italy – with more than 300 activities – and Catalonia – Catalonian Social Forum, more than 4 thousand people – stood out. But the wave also reached France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Russia – 30 activities –, Rumania and Czech Republic. The Mozambican Social Forum was the huge event in Africa, but there were also activities in Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania and Togo: in all of these countries the WSF was present. America joined as a whole: a concert of 6000 people in Belen (where the WSF will took place in 2009), a concert against violence in Bogotá, rearticulation of civil society in Mexico, and more than 20 actions in the United States and Canada, apart from activities in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The mosaic gets assembled little by little: it is estimated that by the end it will be made up of 80 countries, 1000 cities, maybe more than 200 thousand people. Seven years after its beginning as an encounter in a university in Porto Alegre, the World Social Forum had “the Planet Earth” as setting, and there it had, maybe, its biggest encounter.
1. The Absence of a core event refutes the idea that we are a “festival” and reveals that the new political culture is beginning.
More than the numbers, there is a fact of quality: the WSF got free from the dependence of a great event. It is true that its internationalization started in Mumbai, in 2004; that India, Kenya, Mali, Pakistan and Venezuela have already performed some events of the Forum; and that the political form of the Social Forum has been spread all over the world. But it is also true that the expectations regarding this new political culture were focused on the core event, an anti-Davos. One used to look at that encounter to assess the situation of alter-world.

And this used to bring the movements face to face with a big contradiction: why does a political culture that prefers autonomy to representation and that criticize assemblies, decisions and final statements, on behalf of diversity, need a core event? It was due to that impasse the first Social Forums were not capable to solve, that the most persistent criticisms to World Social Forums found their basis: they would be mere festivals: pleasant activities like moments of fraternization and social tourism but unable to articulate resistance and transformations.

2008 World Social Forum is the staging of an alternative. The hundreds of actions performed in only one day all over the world demonstrate that: a) the WSF culture already has local roots in many places in the world; b) it is perfectly possible to coordinate activities without centralizing them; c) apart from being more democratic, the cross-cutting way can be a more efficient method to overcome capitalism. January 26 mobilization has no precedents. Any imposition from the previous tradition of the left-wing was never able to promote a simultaneous mobilisation of this kind.
1. We can all be postcapitalists: there is no social subject or main way of organization or struggle
No matter how intense its glimmerings might be, no political culture lasts, develops and spreads if it is not capable of providing ideas, world projects, social logics able to get people involved, even from their everyday relations. For too long this argument – that is obviously right – was used to try to make alter-world to move back to previous traditions. It was said that Social Forums should choose a set of basic watchword. It was argued that only in this way it would be possible to promote mobilizations at world level. Those who affirmed that it is not possible to defend autonomies and diversities, and at the same time make decisions applying the strategy of majorities against minorities, were intended to be discredited.

2008 WSF adds some practical news to this topic. The more than 1000 activities organized on January 26 have not given the results expected by those who decided which were the most important watchwords. They rose from what hundreds of groups, regardless of their size, already do all over the world. Antimilitarism in New Zealand and Japan. Democracy in Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. Migrants’ rights, discharge of external debt and African free trade agreements termination. Environment, regional autonomies, international solidarity in Europe. Alternatives to the global warming in Amazonia. Fight against violence in the Andes. And cross-cutting subjects everywhere. Movements for sexual diversity. Global commons as an alternative to marketing. Original peoples. Homeopathy. Animals. Esperanto. Hundreds of topics: there mobilizations for all.

The old tradition of the left wing considered that capitalism could only be overcome by the conquest of power and the control of production. Eight decades demonstrated that this idea was reproduced in different ways - the old system ideas - instead of overcoming them. In the centre, now there seems to be the values. A certain Marxist tradition used to say that it was impossible to foresee how the socialist world would be: the important thing was to have the power. Instead, the alter-world movement wants to know everything. Health, Housing, Education, access to culture: how to transform them into rights and have access to them irrespective of affordability? How would gender relations be? In which way shall we avoid the climate catastrophe? How to ensure free flow of information, culture and art? Which will be the ways to establish a culture of Peace? What means to use to make the redistribution (even international) of wealth in a time in which salaried work is an exception?

The Power? Power is, at the most, an important instrument, but never our goal.
1. In the formulation of alternatives, current challenges.
To take pleasure from its own success is, probably, the worst thing that can happen to a political culture. If we believe in cultural changes, the great victory – and maybe the huge change – that 2008 GWF may represent should make us, who are in favour of alter-world, more self-critical and not more self-satisfied. Because successes reflect two big gaps: in the formulation of concrete alternatives and in the permanent intercommunication between ourselves.

Almost ten years have passed since Seattle symbolic gesture – maybe the first international articulation in which an ethical-political counterproposal was formulated against the values and logics of really existing capitalism. In this short historical period, the political and ideological world scene has changed a lot, much more than we would have expected. An atmosphere very favourable to ideas like the supremacy of markets and profits prevailed, as well as the uselessness (or the hazard?) of the attempts to control them, the need to diminish public services and the efficiency of privatizations. It is possible to say, without looking ridiculous, that capitalism was the destiny of humanity.

One decade later, the topic of global warming, provoked precisely by the supremacy of markets over conscious, became a topic of the international agenda. Deep inequalities became a subject that everybody is forced to acknowledge - although still under hypocrite and charitable ways - like the “aid” (not as a right but as a concession) given to Africa, the G8 frequently boasts. Deeply anti-systemic practices, like the questioning of intellectual property, became an important trend in a vast sector of youth. It’s about time to try to step forward, isn’t it?

If we have succeeded in raising, for broad audiences, the validity of values like rights, peace culture, reinvention of democracy – if they are no longer part of the agenda of little circles – why not try to transform them into possible social logics? The next challenge is Belem, in the Amazonia. The 9th World Social Forum shall take place within eleven months. Why not try to create, among us, for instance - and with no need to try to talk on behalf of the WSF – alternatives to global warming? In a moment in which the international financial order that created inequalities shows itself as fragile, why not try to find redistributive options for those majorities excluded? How to propose, as a solution to move forward, an international sphere from societies and from citizenship within the framework of reinvention of democracy?

Will we dare? Just a few days after 2008 WSF, it allows us, as never before, to state that it is possible to try.


Antonio Martins
antonio@planetaportoalegre.net 



 

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