WILPF at the U.S. Social Forums

Lessons learned from U.S. Social Forum events in San Jose, Philadelphia, Jackson and Tijuana are still evolving. Activists converging to share perspectives on social justice, human rights and climate justice returned home with new contacts and ideas.

The grassroots approach drew hundreds of organizations and 1,000 participants to San Jose and 1,300 to Philadelphia for several days of workshops, plenaries, half-day People’s Movement Assemblies, music and a film festival.

One-day forums brought 150 to Jackson MI with an emphasis on climate justice and a similar number to Tijuana. Activists from all over Mexico, representing many of the country's civil society movements, convened with activists from the United States in Tijuana for work sessions on migration, workers’ conditions, mega-projects (including fracking), water and land, and gender justice.

You may watch video from various Social Forum locations and read U.S. Social Forum Put San Jose on the Map of Social Change.  

WILPF member Nancy Price reports from the Philadelphia Forum, and Anne Hoiberg summarizes San Jose highlights. Joan Simon captured videos from workshops on Haiti, Honduras, and Venezuela and Cuba.

Nancy Price reports: I attended the Forum in Philadelphia, where present-day issues of race, poverty, immigration, the system of incarceration that violates human and civil rights, food security and climate led to a very diverse attendance with a large percentage of young people. The Saturday March from Austerity to Prosperity was large even as a light rain turned into a downpour.

In Philadelphia, WILPF organized the Our Rights, Our Land, Our Health: An Urgent Case for a GMO-Free Future workshop that was attended by about 40 people, and I facilitated the Food Movements & the Climate Crisis workshop and participated in the People’s Movement Assembly Reclaim the Commons: Save Our Land, Our Water, Our Seeds! – altogether distributing about 250 of our Human Right to Health and Safe Food Infographic cards.

Fran Foulkrod (the Greater Philadelphia Branch) reports she participated in a World Beyond War workshop and emphasized the need to tie “social issues – especially economic exploitation – to the larger picture of militarism…and the need for groups to work together – to create a movement, not just repeated protest.” Marge Van Cleef spoke about drones in a workshop on militarism, and the Philadelphia Branch worked with Move To Amend on The People v. the Corporations: Whose Constitution Is It? People’s Movement Assembly.

San Jose: food justice, Latin America

Members from around California gathered in San Jose to participate in PMAs and workshops on countering militarism, defending farm workers, food safety and food sovereignty, handing out a few hundred of the infographic cards. See workshop videos by new WILPF member Joan Simon.

• Haiti After Duvalier (sponsor: Haiti Action Committee)
• Honduras: Last Gasp for Neoliberalism? (sponsor: Honduras Solidarity Committee)
• Venezuela and Cuba (sponsor: Task Force on the Americas)

Anne Hoiberg, who presented a workshop along with Anne Barron, reports on workshops and plenaries she attended in Highlights from San Jose Social Forum, concluding, “We can transform our country through the implementation of this multi-racial, multi-sectoral, inter-generational, diverse, inclusive, internationalist movement. Yes, another world is possible!” 

Photo: Windows of the Washington United Youth Center were covered with posters about changes of venue and time for various events at the US Social Forum in San Jose, CA.   Sharat G. Lin photo