myMADRE

Statement by the Colombia Support Network on the US-Colombia Trade Agreement

The following is a statement delivered by Colombia Support Network (CSN) president John I. Laun at their recent annual national meeting, regarding the stalled Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Colombia:

The proposed Colombia-U.S. “Free Trade Agreement” (FTA), if passed by the U.S. Congress and implemented by the two countries, will have several negative effects upon Colombia. Among these are the following: 

1. The Colombian government has failed to provide adequate protection for unionized workers and their leaders. While President Obama expressed concern about the large number of union workers being murdered in Colombia—a large number of them by paramilitaries hired by U.S.-based companies, such as Drummond Coal and Chiquita Brands---insufficient steps have been taken to reduce these killings, which continue unabated. And very few murders of union members result in convictions. Without a strong commitment to ending this union-busting-through-murder phenomenon and impunity for these crimes, violence will continue to threaten workers seeking to protect themselves and their employment from employers’ repressive actions. And the U.S. should press Colombia to outlaw a procedure permitting Colombian employers to sponsor “cooperatives” as an alternative to labor unions. These “cooperatives” are associations which eliminate a direct employment relationship between the workers and the employer, who is then able to avoid providing benefits to the workers and whose wage payments to them are often scandalously low.
2. Colombian campesinos, small-scale farmers with very limited economic resources, will suffer the loss of their traditional markets. Subsidized food crops from the United States will undercut prices in Colombia for such products, leaving the campesinos with nowhere to market their products, such as corn, rice and other staple products. This will increase poverty in rural areas, already a very serious concern, since hundreds of thousands of campesinos were forced off their lands during the Presidential terms of Alvaro Uribe Velez from 2002-2010. Colombia has some 4 million internally displaced persons, and the FTA will only add to this problem.
3. Some larger Colombian agricultural producers, such as those of cotton and sugar cane, may find imports from the U.S., subsidized by the U.S. government, threatening their markets, for example for cotton and sugar.
4. Colombian manufacturing businesses will face increased competition from the entry of U. S. manufacturing concerns into the Colombian market on a preferential basis. This combined with intellectual property protections allowed to the U.S. companies will likely force some Colombian businesses to close. For example, Colombian pharmaceutical manufacturers may find it impossible to compete and to market their products successfully.
5. Indigenous peoples in Colombia are very concerned that intellectual property provisions relating to patent rights may have the effect of cutting off their access to traditional medicines, a fundamentally important part of their culture.
6. Preference for products produced in the United States may result in the decline and disappearance of traditional Colombian products. Thus favorable treatment for wheat may undermine local growing of quinoa and other traditional cereal crops.
7. As products from the U.S. take market share from local Colombian products, the advertisements for such products will become ever more pervasive, leaving native Colombian culture and mores ever more difficult to preserve.

                                                                        John I. Laun,
                                                                        President CSN
                                                                        March 30, 2011

To learn more about the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, click here.

Celebrating 100 Years of International Women's Day: Building a Brighter Future in Nicaragua

Women have come a long way since the first International Women's Day was celebrated 100 years ago--and our work continues. This International Women's Day, myMADRE is sharing stories from our partners. These stories serve to illuminate the struggles women and girls continue to face around the globe. But they also demonstrate the strength and innovation women display in combating these obstacles.

This next story is from Bibidilia, an elderly Nicaraguan Indigenous woman who turned to MADRE's sister organization, Wangki Tangni, to secure an income for herself when she was no longer able to farm.

An elderly woman and an Indigenous healer and midwife, Bibidilia is a godmother to nearly half of the children of her community of Waspam, located on the North Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. She provides traditional healing services at no charge to many poor people, and she is a community leader, revered for her skills and dedication.

On a typical day, Bibidilia wakes up at 5 a.m. to prepare the day's food. By 6 a.m., she is tending to patients or collecting medicinal plants and flowers for her treatments. At 8 a.m., Bibidilia crosses the Coco River in her small boat and walks two hours to her farm. She works alone, growing beans, rice, and vegetables. Every afternoon, she walks the two hours back to the river, carrying whatever she has harvested. Usually, it is only enough to feed herself; there is rarely anything left over to sell.

As Bibidilia began to age and her capacity for farm work diminished, she worried about how she would feed herself. Fortunately, MADRE’s partner organization in Nicaragua, Wangki Tangni, was able to start a program called “Seeds of Success,” which provided Bibidilia with the resources and training to start a modest bread-baking venture. The money she earns ensures that she can continue to live independently and with dignity.

Now, Bibidilia is able to give back to her community. Every week, she welcomes more than 40 community members to the Children's Book Corner where she coordinates play and learning activities for young and old alike. Bibidilia is determined to help build a brighter future for her community.

To learn more about MADRE's work in Nicaragua, and what your support enables us to do in Indigenous communities like Bibidilia's, click here.

Visiting the Women Workers’ Committee in Guatemala

Hello again, blog readers! The last time I wrote, I let you know that after leaving my staff position at MADRE, I would have the opportunity to travel to visit our partners in Guatemala. And though mudslides prevented me from traveling to visit Muixil, I did have the chance to meet with our sister organization in Barcenas, the Women Workers’ Committee. The Women Workers’ Committee was founded in Barcenas, a neighborhood of Guatemala City, to fight for the human rights of women working in maquilas (sweatshops).

My first day in Barcenas, I met with Sandra Gonzalez and other program directors from the organization, and we had a chance to chat for a while. One of the young women took pictures of Sandra and me as we went through the bag of donations I had brought with me:

Sandra spoke about how important MADRE's support is to the organization. At one point, she pulled out a photo that we had sent to her of the MADRE staff, a picture taken two years ago at MADRE’s 25^th anniversary celebration. I named everyone in the picture, and she was surprised to learn that mine was one of the faces pictured. It was wonderful to connect in person with someone we had only seen before in photos.

The next day, I arrived in the morning to attend a workshop organized by the Women Workers’ Committee on violence against women. Women in Guatemala have faced appallingly high levels of violence, with nearly 4,000 murdered in the past decade and with little police protection available.

Sandra started the class with a positive energy exercise, and a young woman spoke about the various types of violence that exist and how to confront them. This was followed by a discussion on roots of violence, and workshop participants shared their own ideas and experiences on the topic.

All around, I was delighted to meet Sandra – she's incredibly friendly and obviously highly motivated and committed to the work of the Women Workers’ Committee.  I’m glad to have the chance to share my thoughts and my pictures and to try to paint a picture of their great work for other MADRE members.

Take Action for World Food Day: Tell USAID to Buy Local in Sudan

Today is World Food Day, a chance for us to recognize the lethal threat that hunger poses to millions across the globe and to uplift innovative solutions.  MADRE sister organization in Sudan, Zenab for Women in Development, is creating just those solutions.  We've written on this blog about how their successful efforts to create a union of women farmers has helped them to see more fruitful harvests that generate income for their communities.  Women have pooled their resources to pay for their daughters' educations, to build a community center and to expand opportunities for themselves and for their families.

You can support women farmers, like the ones supported by Zenab for Women in Development and MADRE.  Sign this petition today and call for your tax dollars to support women farmers--not giant agribusinesses. 

Here's how it currently works in Sudan: Our tax dollars are used to buy grain from US factory farms—the same giant corporations that already receive $26 billion in tax subsidies. Then the grain is transported halfway around the world, using thousands of gallons of fossil fuel and releasing tons of harmful carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The transport typically takes months while hungry people grow more desperate. Once the food finally arrives, it floods agricultural markets, weakening farmers' abilities to make a living from their work. Small-scale farmers are the first to go bankrupt. Most are small-holder women farmers, who work small plots of land hoping to sell enough at market to buy cooking oil, flour, a bar of soap and a pair of shoes so a child can stay in school. This kind of globalized distribution method undermines the very people it seeks to help.

Click here to send a message to US policymakers: food aid crops should be purchased directly from women farmers in the regions targeted to receive assistance.

Buying Local Halfway Across the Globe

As individuals, Americans are generous, often donating in response to crises abroad even while struggling to make ends meet at home. We tend to assume that our government’s foreign aid is similarly altruistic. But is it?

October 16 is World Food Day, a good time to examine this assumption about U.S. food aid and begin to press for some much-needed improvements.

Meet Khalida Mahmoud, a 29-year-old woman whose farming family was driven into worsening poverty, after U.S. food aid poured into her home region of eastern Sudan. That’s not how food aid is supposed to work, but just look at the policy: your tax dollars are used to buy grain from U.S. factory farms, the same giant corporations that already receive $26 billion in tax subsidies. Then the grain is transported halfway around the world, using thousands of gallons of fossil fuel and releasing tons of harmful carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The transport typically takes months while hungry people grow more desperate.

Once the food finally arrives, it floods agricultural markets, destabilizing fragile local economies. Small farmers are the first to go bankrupt. Most of them are women like Khalida, who work small plots of land hoping to sell enough at market to buy cooking oil, flour, a bar of soap and a pair of shoes so a child can stay in school.

These women are more than the backbones of their families: they grow most of Africa’s food. Unlike giant grain corporations, these women farm without fossil fuels and harmful chemicals. Their sustainable agriculture practices are critical to meeting the twin challenges of feeding people and protecting the planet. Khalida and millions of other small-scale women farmers are the people we want to support with our food aid programs. Instead, the policy undermines the livelihoods of those who hold the key to long-term food security in Africa.

Fortunately, there is a straightforward solution: the U.S. should buy food aid crops directly from local farmers in Africa. When the U.N. World Food Program did this, they were able to obtain 75 percent more corn to feed hungry families than when they purchased grain from factory farms in the U.S. Buying specifically from women farmers has an enormous added benefit. Studies consistently show that when poor women gain access to money, they use it to provide food, healthcare and education for their children.

Now is the perfect time to push for this innovative solution and Sudan is the best place to start. Here are three reasons why.

First, this fall, Congress will reform the 1961 U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, which governs how food aid is purchased and administered. The new policy should recognize that even widespread hunger is invariably a localized crisis and that food aid crops should be purchased directly from women farmers in the regions targeted to receive assistance.

Second, for the first time ever, women farmers in Sudan have organized a union, enabling them to produce enough grains to provide at least a modest portion of the region’s food aid. Sudan’s Women Farmers Union is supported by MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization, in partnership with a Sudanese group called Zenab for Women in Development.

Finally, in less than 100 days, Sudan will face a referendum that is likely to split the country in two, a potentially destabilizing vote that may lead to renewed violence, forced displacement and worsening hunger and poverty for thousands of families. At a time of impending crisis for Sudan, we can call for an improved U.S. food aid policy committed to buying local, sustainably grown crops from small-holder women farmers, giving them the resources they need to hold their communities together.

Last month, President Obama launched a new global development policy. In a speech at the United Nations, he said, “We must be more selective and focus our efforts where we have the best partners and where we can have the greatest impact.” Using our food aid dollars to support small-holder women farmers is a chance to do just that.

By Yifat Susskind, MADRE Policy and Communications Director

This op-ed was originally distributed by the American Forum.

Tell the president and USAID to buy African crops for food aid!  Sign the MADRE petition here.

Looking Back on the US Social Forum

Detroit is often portrayed as a city in crisis. Presently, Detroit has the highest unemployment rate of any major city with 23.2% (nearly 1 in 4 citizens) of the population without jobs. Michigan has held the number one position in the nation for unemployed for nearly 4 years.

Calling for social justice and demanding their rights, the people of Detroit have developed a culture of resistance. This mobilization extends to a variety of issues including "combating violence against youth, struggling against utility shutoffs, opposing pickups by the ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] in southwest Detroit and fighting the closing of schools." Detroit is one of the most active sites of social mobilization in the nation and the perfect site for the second US Social Forum that ended just this past weekend.

The US Social Forum allowed participants to actively engage in a five day discussion on multiple social, racial, gender, economic, and ecological concerns. Defined as a "multi-racial, multi-sectoral, inter-generational, diverse, inclusive, internationalist movement" the US Social Forum is a regional component of the similarly structured World Social Forum.

Attendees of the US Social forum are estimated to have amounted to over 20,000 with more than 1,000 workshops held.  While organized groups and interested individuals spanned both nationally and globally, about 17% of registered participants hailed from Detroit. Indeed, local activists utilized this opportunity to highlight the conditions within the city.

The US Social Forum was structured as an interactive conference in which participants were encouraged to lead discussions. The many broad themes of these workshops include democracy and governance, climate justice, and Indigenous sovereignty.

The topic of gender and women's rights was present throughout these various themes. On the second day of the forum MADRE human rights advocacy lawyer Lisa Davis participated in a panel on sex work. Calls were made for the increased accountability of the United States government through close scrutiny of its human rights record. Additional discussions concerning gender included the topic of media and the politics of race and gender. 

The US Social Forum provides individuals, ignored by legislative policies and continually silenced and victimized by mainstream media coverage, with a legitimate outlet to voice their concerns. Imagining a different world is integral to create social change. As the US Social Forum slogan reads, "Another World is Possible. Another US is Necessary."

Preparing for the G20 Summit in Toronto

On June 26 and 27, as the G20 meets in Toronto, progressive organizations will be holding alternative summits, themed days of resistance and days of action. The meetings will offer the public involvement in discussions on poverty, human rights and climate change, serving as an open forum and counterpoint to the private meetings to take place at the G20 Summit.
 
The public meetings will include prominent speakers and advocates for environmental, economic and social justice, including author-activist Naomi Klein, who is scheduled to address participants at the public Shout-Out for Global Justice to take place today. 

See a full schedule of protests planned for the week »

More information about protests and scheduled events »

For more information:

Toronto G20 Protest Hints at More to Come
by Cameron French and Pav Jordan
June 19, 2010

G20 protesters say they won’t be intimidated by police tactics
by Jesse McLean, Toronto Star
June 8, 2010

Buy Seeds for Women Farmers in Sudan

This year, for Mother’s Day, we are sharing the stories from across the globe of women – mothers – who are demanding justice for women and their families.  Through their determination and effort, they have remade their communities and created real change.

Hadija is a 47-year-old farmer. Like many women in Sudan, she grows most of the food that her family eats. Yet, the Ministry of Agriculture refused to recognize Hadija as a farmer and has excluded her from government programs that benefit male farmers.

That is, until MADRE and our partner in Sudan, Zenab for Women in Development, launched the first-ever Women Farmers’ Union in the country. MADRE and Zenab provide seeds, tools and training in organic farming and human rights. The results are powerful. Hadija and the other women farmers are increasing their yields and demanding their rights—as farmers and as women. 

“Without the Women Farmers’ Union, I would never have earned enough to afford school fees for my children,” said Hadija. “I am so proud because this year, I was able to send my youngest daughter to college with the income from my crops.”

One group of women farmers have pooled their extra income to fund literacy training in their village, where 95 percent of the people cannot read. In another village, the women are using their earnings to bring electricity to the community. “Before, women had no hope, no access to seeds or the tools to grow food for themselves and their families,” said Hadija. “Now we are feeding our families and making things better for our communities.”

How You Can Help This Mother’s Day:

A Mother’s Day gift of $25 to the Women Farmers Union for ten pounds of seeds allows two women to farm sorghum, sesame, and millet for one season. With every gift you make for this Mother’s Day, we will send a beautiful card to the person of your choice, telling them about the important work that you are supporting in their name.

To read other stories from the Mothers Make the World series, click here.  To ensure delivery of your card by Mother's Day, please submit your donation by 5pm EST today.

MADRE Condemns Racist Law in Arizona as a Violation of Human Rights

Below is a statement we just released on the MADRE website.

MADRE joins a growing coalition of immigrant, social justice, labor, religious, human and civil rights organizations in denouncing the recently-signed Arizona Senate Bill 1070.  This racist law represents an assault on the human rights of millions of people in Arizona and sanctions widespread racial profiling by law enforcement.

Among other provisions, the law mandates that police demand proof of a person’s immigration status “where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States.”  The standard of “reasonable suspicion” opens wide the door to racist police harassment, as people run the risk of potential arrest without a warrant for simply “appearing” to be undocumented.

Undocumented immigrants have long been forced to the margins of US society through criminalization and violence.  Recognizing this, even law enforcement bodies like the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative and the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police have criticized this legislation for decreasing the likelihood that immigrant communities will report crimes or cooperate with the police, for fear of deportation.

Xenophobes in the Arizona House and Senate have given respectable voice to growing numbers of anti-immigrant hate groups. Vigilantes like the Minutemen openly cheer the killings of migrants at the US border. Ironically, people join these groups mainly because they are threatened by the same policies that spur immigration in the first place: namely, trade deals like NAFTA that have destroyed the livelihoods and educational opportunities of millions of white, working-class people in the US.  Yet, instead of organizing against such policies, many people scapegoat immigrants as the source of their troubles.

In Mexico, NAFTA has bankrupted millions of corn farmers, destroyed small businesses, and driven down wages, sparking mass migration of people in search of work.

Tomorrow, May 1st, also known as May Day, represents an opportunity for those opposed to this dangerous law to speak out for immigrant workers’ rights.  The National Immigrant Solidarity Network has provided a list of local actions nationwide: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/MayDay2010/lists.html

MADRE reaffirms its longstanding call for US policy that:

• Upholds international human rights standards and worker protections for immigrants and non-immigrants in the US;
• Supports sustainable, equitable economic growth in Latin America; and
• Recognizes freedom of movement across borders as a human right.

Support Smallholder Women Farmers in Nicaragua

This year, for Mother’s Day, we are sharing the stories from across the globe of women – mothers – who are demanding justice for women and their families.  Through their determination and effort, they have remade their communities and created real change.

“We are Indigenous People, so the forest has always been our source of food,” said Patricia, who lives in a remote region along Nicaragua’s Coco River. “When our land was taken from us, we became hungry. My eight-year-old daughter stopped laughing. We did a survey with doctors and found that we had a 75 percent malnutrition rate in my community. We had to find a solution and with MADRE we did." Patricia was one of the first to sign up for MADRE’s Harvesting Hope organic farming and livestock-management trainings. After the training, which was offered through MADRE’s partner, Wangki Tangni, Patricia received chickens and learned how to care for them.

Through Harvesting Hope, MADRE and Wangki Tangni have trained thousands of women in small-scale organic farming and livestock-management. We provide seeds, ongoing training and farm animals.

MADRE and Wangki Tangni recently provided organic watermelon, cabbage, squash, tomato and cucumber seeds for 125 small organic farms and coordinated four farmers’ markets. “I now have a small business selling eggs,” said Patricia. “My children are eating everyday and my daughter is laughing again. It is the best sound in the world.”

How You Can Help This Mother’s Day:

A Mother’s Day gift of $50 to Harvesting Hope will enable a local woman to inoculate 20 chickens. With every gift you make for this Mother’s Day, we will send a beautiful card to the person of your choice, telling them about the important work that you are supporting in their name.

To read other stories from the Mothers Make the World series, click here.