SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND GRASSROOTS GROUPS - April 2011
Documentary Film Project: Human Rights For and By the People
ESCR-Net's Social Movement Working Group is glad to announce the launch of its first documentary film project, Human Rights For the People and By the People: Securing Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from Below. The film illustrates common challenges faced by social movements (particularly connecting local struggles to the changing international context), effective human rights strategies (and related lessons), and successful examples of, or guidance for, beneficial collaborations. It visually represents an emerging network of social movements and grassroots groups using the ESCR framework in their organizing efforts. The experiences and expertise of members of the Social Movements and Grassroots Working Group form the content of this documentary. The documentary was released in Spanish and English at the ESCR-Net Social Movement & Grassroots Working Group's Human Rights Mutual Learning Workshop & 3rd Solidarity Visit, held in Brazil in November 2010.
The documentary will be made available online soon. If you are interested in receiving a copy, please write to Suad Elias at selias@escr-net.org or Niko Lusiani at nlusini@escr-net.org
ESCR-Net Social Movement & Grassroots Working Group-Human Rights Mutual Learning Workshop & 3rd Solidarity Visit: Working Together to Secure the Human Rights to Land, Territory and other Natural Resources
ESCR-Net's Social Movement and Grassroots Working Group (SMWG) celebrated its Human Rights Mutual-Learning Workshop and 3rd Solidarity Visits: "Working Together to Secure the Human Rights to Land, Territory and other Natural Resources" from the 8th to the 13th of November 2010 at the Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes in Guarerema, São Paulo, Brazil, hosted by MST-Brazil's prominent land rights movement-and Terra de Direitos, a well-renowned Brazilian legal aid and advocacy organization. On our first two days together, a Human Rights Mutual-Learning Workshop was held as a way to share cases and strengthen the capacity of participants to incorporate and utilize human rights strategies in their organizing and advocacy over land, territory and natural resources. Participants then engaged in a two-day Solidarity Visit in the communities of Itapeva, Sao Paulo and Porecatú, Paraná. The Itapeva settlement was an inspiring example of victory in the face of a decades-long struggle to access land by MST communities. The Porecatú community for its part was still in the grips of resisting threats of eviction and paramilitary attacks, struggling to develop an autonomous system of food production, organized an itinerant school, strengthen their fight for land democratization, and demand dispossessions of illegal areas and denouncing crimes committed by local landowners.
The Workshop and Visits were followed by a two-day Strategy Session partially utilized by participants to build an agenda for joint work on the issue of right to land, territory and natural resources. Participants issued the Guararema Declaration in support of local land rights struggles
As one outcome from the workshop, a Manual of social movement strategies to ensure the human rights to land, territory and natural resources is being produced currently. The Manual will document in detail the cases and the strategies discussed during the Brazil gathering and complement this information with additional material and interviews to the relevant groups. The Manual will serve as an important tool for participating groups and others to increase the learning of the Workshop and spread it amongst their constituencies and partners.
More pictures of the Workshop and Solidarity Visits can be accessed here.
GET INVOLVED!
For more information, write to Suad Elías at selias@escr-net.org or Niko Lusiani at nlusiani@escr-net.org.