Travelling with Matt in Gaza, Civicus and SEWA

First something wonderful! You may remember Travelling with Matt. His website, "Where the Hell is Matt?" showed him dancing, badly, around the world. The video of his travels, and dancing with people in many countries, was very inspiring and uplifting, and brought us all together. Now he has a video where he is dancing with children in Gaza. Watching the kids dance, and reading about them having a good time at summer camp, made me very happy.



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Another great thing that is happening in Canada. . .

I hope I can attend this assembly. CIVICUS 9th Annual World Assembly, which this year is in Montreal. See: http://civicus.org/world-assembly Sounds very appealing. . . It will be interesting, and much would be new to me. I want to participate and would hope for increasing my knowledge base about development issues, and to participate in making decisions about future outcomes fro the organization and its members.

The following workshop interests me in particular--

Abstract:

In the backdrop of increasing economic inequalities threatening to arrest social cohesion and harmony, the search for solution-oriented interventions to secure economic justice has gained centre-stage in the global development debate and practice. At the proposed workshop, participants will have the opportunity to share experiences, learn and gain practical tips from a highly experienced panel of civil society practitioners about the criticality of participatory governance approaches in promoting equitable economic development policies, securing economic rights of people and achieve inclusive growth. Specifically, participants will be exposed to tools and approaches such as Participatory Budgeting, Public Expenditure Tracking, Social Audits and so on. A part of the panel discussion will be driven by a video documentary produced by the International Budget Partnership (IBP)

Presenters:

Manjunath Sadashiva, CIVICUS Participatory Governance Programme, India
Anu Pekkonen, CIVICUS Participatory Governance Programme, Finland
Helena Hofbauer, International Budget Partnership, South Africa
Elizabeth Pinnington, Pinnington Training and Research, Canada
Yogesh Kumar, Samarthan, India

In India, I saw so much more participation in parties and politics. . . and it seemed like everyone had a real analysis of what was going on. . . So I would really like to engage in that discussion - how can they increase participation in India, especially among the poor - who demonstrate but get excluded from party politics - and, how can it be emulated in other countries?

That CIVICUS Assembly is being followed by something else, that's free (Civicus is expensive - $600.) and also looks interesting. . . is the Citizen's Media Rendevouz The website says, in part:

In an era where mass media is increasingly fragile (declining advertizing revenues, financial crisis, digital revolution, fragmenting audiences, etc.), citizen media have an unprecedented opportunity to occupy the public sphere, particularly due to the advancement of social media and the democratization of modes of production.

For this second edition, the Citizen Media Rendez-Vous seeks to advance innovative practices within citizen media’s landscape, here and elsewhere in world. How can the public access and appropriate new media projects to better inform and mobilize itself? How can citizen media be used in the defense of human rights?

The Citizen Media Rendez-Vous gathers bloggers, engaged filmmakers, photographers and citizen journalists, media experts, alternative and independent media practitioners, web entrepreneurs, as well as others from the media landscape in turmoil. The Citizen Media Rendez-Vous is a space that promotes the sharing of ideas and practices. It invites new perspectives and encourages new collaborations. Lively exchanges among panelists and participants will touch subjects such as the creation of content, the containers within which content is placed (technology platforms) and different community organizational models.

I am planning to go to Montreal for these events. I have registered for the Rendevous and applied to be a volunteer blogger for the CIVICUS Assembly, as I cannot afford the registration fee.
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Last link suggestion today . . . and another happy one is to a story in the NY Times

The story is about a poor Indian woman from Gujarat who was selected by SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association) to come to NY to promote Indian handicrafts. I am particularly impressed with SEWA (have been for some time) who have helped organize women in India using a kind of trade union model. They also have a very successful and profitable bank that serves those who were originally thought to not need a bank - micro credit is now used in lots of places. Anyway, it was a story that made me laugh and cry. I won't spell it out - just follow the link -From Untouchable to Businesswoman - and go read it for yourself.

I cried partly because in lots of India, and Africa too, it is hard for people to find clean drinking water. Today Kevin and I went for a hike through an area that once housed many people on a "poor Farm" outside Halifax, NS. We were thinking and talking about the model of having a "poor farm" where you went to work and eat if you were too poor to feed yourself, and worrying that we have not come much further - too poor to feed yourself you can get welfare which will leave you well below the Canadian low income cut offs and not able to feed, house, and transport yourself. . . Eventually it became a "mental institution" instead, and we know how those services are available and serve us well (not!) The farm had a reservoir, which we found, but the water was very "dirty' looking and it started us thinking about people who have to drink water that is not clean and safe, and who even have to feed it to their children. . . it is the kind of thing that SEWA helps with, in India.