Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

America Social Forum, October 7-12, 2008 in Guatemala.

Are you interested and active in international solidarity and social justice issues? The PSAC B.C., with the help of the PSAC Social Justice Fund, has recently been given the opportunity to sponsor a member as part of CoDevelopment Canada’s delegation to the 3rd America Social Forum in Guatemala. The trip will take place from October 6-14, 2008.

CoDevelopment Canada (CoDev) is a Vancouver-based international development organization that facilitates links between Canadian labour and social organizations and their counterparts in Latin America. Approximately half of CoDev’s partnerships are with Latin American teachers’ unions. The focus of this work has been on promoting gender equity and women’s leadership in unions, strengthening teachers’ unions’ abilities to conduct research and generate proposals for alternative democratic education reform, and the improvement and democratization of classroom teaching practices. For more information on CoDev, please visit their website.

The America Social Forum (ASF) is part of the bigger family of the World Social Forum. The following information is taken from the ASF website, further information can be found there.

The 3rd ASF will allow peoples from across the continent to come together in this region, which has lived through heroic struggles throughout its past and recent history, so as to demonstrate solidarity, and to better understand the alternatives that have arisen here in the face of war, destruction, fear, and the perverse legacy of forms of violence displaying the most ferocious examples of militarized neoliberalism, including femicide.

The 3rd ASF will embrace the range of struggles, proposals, and experiences that have been strengthened, renewed or emerging over this rich period of common searching that has been taking place across the continent. It will stimulate stronger interconnections and aim to create more effective spaces for self-guided construction of shared platforms for emancipation.

The 3rd ASF will take place in Guatemala with the collaboration of social movements, indigenous peoples, academic groups and a range of committed sectors from this country and from across Mesoamerica. At the same time the presence of groups from across the continent will further stimulate and enrich these alliances.

Objectives of the 3rd America Social Forum:
1. To further strengthen interconnections between struggles, experiences and critical perspectives across regions of the Americas, among collective subjects that are resisting the neoliberal order and making change.
2. To foster the knowledge and practices, ancestral and new, that support alternatives; and independent critical thought in order to comprehend the strategies of domination as well as those for change.
3. To build greater solidarity with expressions of resistance in Mesoamerica.
4. To provide a broad space for building a shared agenda and platforms for emancipation among peoples of the continent and of the world (end of excerpt).

There will also be an opportunity to meet the Mayan community representatives who play a central role in the resistance to mining in Guatemala. They will be front and centre at the Social Forum, and it is important for members to have an opportunity to hear their message and concerns, vis-a-vis Canadian mining operations.

The PSAC member selected must commit to:
- writing a report for an article on the Forum for distribution to PSAC members
- making a presentation to the PSAC B.C. Council and/or other PSAC body
- organizing one follow-up activity involving international solidarity issues

To be eligible to apply you should support international solidarity and equality issues and be a member of the PSAC. Please send your interest in attending to Kay Sinclair in the B.C. REVP’s office at sinclak@psac.com or by fax at (604) 430-0194 by midnight, Saturday, September 13th, with a paragraph of 400 words or less describing your international solidarity perspective or philosophy; any involvement in PSAC international solidarity, equality, or social justice activities; any community international solidarity, equality, or social justice activities; any PSAC union involvement; and why you are interested in attending.

Please also provide your contact information and your membership number and please also indicate whether you identify as a member of an equity group, i.e. woman; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender; aboriginal; racially visible; or a member with a disability (this is optional.)