UAWC participates in the World Social Forum in Tunis

Within Via Campesian’s Activities UAWC participates in the World Social Forum in Tunis

(Tunisia, Tunis, March 2015) The Union of Agricultural Work Committees represented Palestine and lead the Arab World delegation in La Via Campesina’s activities within the World Social Forum (WSF) in Tunis. La Via Campesina delegation included representatives from France, Senegal, Brazil, Palestine, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Mali, Norway, Chile, Nicaragua, Belgium, and Sweden. The representatives emphasized on continuing the fight to accomplish farmers’ rights. UAWC participated with La Via Campesina in the WSF’s opening demonstration raising the Palestinian flag with other international activists and organizations.

UAWC and LVC organized several activities in the WSF to discuss The fight for Food Sovereignty: The role of La Via Campesina in the defense of peasant’s rights, Defending peasant seeds from commodification and corporate capture, Small Scale farmer’s solutions to Climate Change, The role of the peasant Women in the Arab world, and many other activities that interest farmers and empowers them to defend their rights. The World Social Forum is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemonic globalization.

The World Social Forum is “an opened space – plural, diverse, non-governmental and non-partisan – that stimulates the decentralized debate, reflection, proposals building, experiences exchange and alliances among movements and organizations engaged in concrete actions towards a more solidarity, democratic and fair world….a permanent space and process to build alternatives to neoliberalism.” It is held by members of the alter-globalization movement (also referred to as the global justice movement) who come together to coordinate global campaigns, share and refine organizing strategies, and inform each other about movements from around the world and their particular issues.