During the World Social Forum 2005 the 5th Intercontinental Youth Camp (IYC will take place in Parque Harmonia, Porto Alegre. Situated in at the heart of the WSF landscape, the camp will map the alternatives throughout the camp focusing on self-management, horizontality, diversity and creative resistance, experimenting and proposing alternatives that oppose capitalist and neoliberal hegemony. The Youth Camp opens its doors on the 24th January to around 25,000 people from around the world. One challenge of IYC 2005 is to enable the building of new networks of different struggles seeking articulation from local to global levels with the capacity to influence the consequences and causes of global political spheres and Also it will be crucial to collect information on all the different practices experimented in the camp for exchange on an international level and to spread the ideas.
Full Report Call for activities at the IYC World Social Forum
Intergalactic Caracol The Caracol is a Youth Camp initiative, from 26th-31st january, that aims to bring together struggles that radicalise the resistance to capitalism and reclaim the world social forum, but also to think beyond the WSF facilitating groups with similar or different projects to find their overlaps and ways of cooperating.
Mosaic of Books The Mosaic of Books - World Social Library campaign has already gathered almost 4,000 titiles since Porto Alegre 2001. From mometum gathered from the World Social Forums since they include titles in literature, education, philosophy and a library of alternatives for the construction of another world. All participants coming to the World Social Forum are encouraged to contribute a book to this expanding mosaic.
Global Scanning Day As part of the youth camp and mosaic of books, the 30th January sees a day of Global Scanning to propagate the ideas of sharing free knowledge and horizontal distribution methods. Everyone is encouraged to scan periodicals, books, poems, pictures and stories of resistance. Report in Spanish and English coming soon.
International Youth Camp
Since the first World Social Forum in 2001 the youth camp has rapidly developed its dynamics and concepts- setting it apart from the World Social Forum by bringing togehter political discourse alongside pratical, ecological approaches to covivencia ( living together). The political processes used throughout the camp focus on self-management, horizontality, diversity and creative resistance, experimenting and proposing alternatives that oppose capitalist and neoliberal hegemony. The camp will be a huge space of exchange, networking, debate and convergence of the most diverse forms of social, political and cultural activism.
The camp will consist of seven centres of action (capacity up to 500 people,) besides various other smaller spaces to host the activities, spread out over all of the camp area. The centres represent different main topics and struggles (Cultural Resistance, Health and Culture, Communication and Free Knowledge, Social and Student Movements, Human Rights and Sexual Diversity, Environment, Global Struggle and Direct Action), as well as three spaces of free occupation (ELOs) for spontaneous activities.
Self-managed camp life:
Beyond this the poli-centric spatial set-up of the camp-territory in opposition to the centralist logics of most of the cities in the world will create many spaces of spontaneous and free encounter of the camps inhabitants. Sixty small neighbourhood centres (barrios) will be the main unit for the campers to self-manage co-existence in the camp. The building of the camps structures is realised based on the contribution and knowledge of different social movements.
Financially the camp is dependant on the World Social Forum, which does not impede a high degree of political autonomy and will not undermine its critical position in relation to the forum, which will be spread out just north and south of the camp area � a great difference from 2003, when the forum was located far more distant in other city areas.
After the all resistances-camp in Quito, Ecuador during the first Social Forum of the Americas the fifth Intercontinental Youth Camp will be another important landmark bringing together and strengthening the diverse forms of global resistance struggle. Once more over 20.000 people will opt to live together in the camp, creatively and powerfully showing face to the dominant powers of our neoliberal world.
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WSF: Building Occupations by No Vox and MNLM.
26.01.2005 22:54
The World Social Forum is an opportunity for various groups and social movements to discuss way of creating a better world. It is also the time where some groups decide to change their condition here and now.
That's what happened yesterday
On the 25th of January a group of 30 homeless people decided to occcupy an empty public building to make themselces a new home. The building is situated in the centre of Porto Alegre, on 727 Avenida Borge de Meideros. This building is now being used as a creche and housing for 30 families. It had been empty for several years and the governement was planning to sell it to the private sector (making it imporsible for poor families to afford the rents proposed by the commercial sector). The group of homeless people who occupied the building are supported by a Brasilian organisation called the MNLM, the Movimento National de Luta Pela Moradia, a movement that fights for the right of everyone to have a roof. The action is also supported by an international network of the destitute called the NO VOX, those who have no voice in our society but still make themselves heard!
The families entered the building at 6 o'clock in the morning and started cleaning the flats that had been left empty and abandoned for many years. They have now cleaned 4 floors out of 8 and more families are joining them to occupied the entire building. The families are coming mainly from the interior of the State of Rio Grande do Sul such as Pelotas and Santa Maria, but others are also coming from further away like Sao Paolo. When they first entered the building, there was already 9 inhabitants, a middle aged man with 9 children and young people. The youngest one was a girl of around 8, with others aged from 11 to early 20. The new occupants offered food and a collaboration emerged to join efforts and campaigns to reclaim the building and legalise the occupation. Shortly after though, they left and there are hopes for their return.
Homelessness and insecure housing is huge problem in Brasil with 14 million people either homeless or living in favelas often without the basic requirments of habitation such as clean water and shelter and condititions of unsanitary hygiene which causes a massive amount of ill health. The MNLM, has more than 1 000 000 families currently as members of the movement with 300 000 currently fighting for a new homes. The policy of this movement is to build new homes with the families and assits in facillitating legal support and an exchange of building and construction skills. 1 800 000 families, members of the MNLM, have already been rehoused either through the rehabilitation of empty buildings or through the construction of new homes with ecoconstruction material.
But the housing and poverty problems are not only the lot of Brasilian people and this is why this occupation is also supported by the NoVox, an international network of destute people who decide to act by thmeself to solve their problem rather than relying on marginalised state support.
babel-nate