Education Tools

Grassroots International recently supported a delegation of Haitian social movements to attend the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit. This diverse group represented several of our partners and allies on the ground in Haiti and offered them a unique networking and educational platform.

Some of the advice for how Haiti ought to rebuild after the earthquake sounds hauntingly familiar, echoing the same bad development advice that Haiti has received for decades -- even before the nation faced its current devastating situation. To avoid repeating the past failures, we would be wise to review how previous aid models led down the wrong path.

As the food crisis showed us last year, adding food to the speculation market can have serious -- and sometimes deadly -- consequences when the bubble bursts. Surprisingly, the food and gas crises weren’t caused by a shortage of food or oil. Instead, they were brought on by the same thing that caused the global economic crisis – market deregulation. While we had to pay more for our gas and food, big-time investors made a bundle. A new video and accompanying website helps explain how speculators brought about last year’s food and oil bubbles.

As more cases of Swine Flu are reported across the globe, two kinds of opportunism seem to be spreading as well. First, non-profits spin the story to seek funding or media coverage for whatever portion of their work might overlap with the rising pandemic. Some are more relevant-and actually engaged-than others. Second, businesses might use the health scare for their own purposes.

In Egypt, pigs are being slaughtered to "prevent" the spread of swine flu in a country where even a single case of the illness has not yet been confirmed.

Two new reports are available from Other Worlds, a multi-media education and organizing collaborative.

By Annie Leonard

Since The Story of Stuff was launched online on December 4, 2007, the site has been visited by millions of people in over 224 countries and territories around the world, and we have received literally thousands of requests for the film to be translated. We are pleased to launch this international site, which includes translated versions of the films with subtitles, as well as the contact information for the organizations around the world that did the translations.

When I talk to people in Gaza these days, two things usually come up.  The first, even in the midst of such a devastating war, is sincere gratitude for keeping in touch.  The second is the question of why the world - especially the US whose taxpayers are financing the war - is silent.  Although our actions have not yet been able to halt the attacks on Gaza, I can honestly tell our Palestinian friends that we are not silent. 

 

Grassroots International and the National Family Farm Coalition announce the release of a new popular education tool that can help you understand and fix the world food crisis: Food for Thought and Action: A Food Sovereignty Curriculum.

It's been said that "you are what you eat." In the face of a global food crisis, it's clear that we've been forced to swallow far more than what's on our plates. Our global food system is broken, with nearly a billion hungry people around the world and millions more forced from their failed farms as industrial agriculture privatizes and despoils our water, soil and biodiversity.

I generally graze throughout the day - snacking every 20-45 minutes, derive immense joy from sampling oozy, foul smelling cheese, could talk for hours about the braised eggplant with basil at Taiwan Cafe (easily the best eggplant dish in the greater Boston area with only the velvety eggplant appetizer at Lala Rokh coming close), would drive across town in rush hour traffic to get a pork floss bun and a bubble tea from my favorite Korean bakery in Brighton and am frequent reader and occasional poster on www.chowhound.com (the website of all websites for food dorks). Given all of this, sustaining myself on $2/day proved to be an enormous challenge.