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| Latin America Week 2002 national | miscellaneous | news report  Wednesday April 17, 2002 15:05 by Sally - Latin America Solidarity Centre lasc at iol dot ie 5, Merrion Row, Dublin 2 (01) 676 04 35 New Struggles for Decent Housing Latin America Week is an annual festival of educational, cultural and campaigning events held throughout the island of Ireland. The primary purpose of the week is to highlight the issues that affect the marginalised majority that live in Latin America and the Caribbean. Now in its sixteenth year, “Latin America Week 2000” focus attention on the theme of Housing or Accommodation. Accommodation is in a critical state in Ireland and Latin America and the week’s event seek to explore its root causes and the grassroots responses to it. In addition to the traditional Latin America solidarity and non-governmental constituency, a number of other specific Irish organisations and groups that deal directly with the issue of housing or accommodation will participate in the week. These include Pavee Point, Focus Ireland, the Irish Council for Social Housing and the Housing Association for Integrated Living (HAIL) amongst others. Latin America Week Latin America Week is an annual festival of educational, cultural and campaigning events held throughout the island of Ireland. The primary purpose of the week is to highlight the issues that affect the marginalised majority that live in Latin America and the Caribbean. Visiting Speakers from Latin America Brazil Maria Alvez “Bezinha” da Silva, Anselmo Schwertner and Marcelo Forlanski are activists from the Movimento Nacional de Luta pela Moradia (MNLM) or National Movement of Struggle for Housing. The Moradia (Portuguese for Housing) movement has won real reforms all over Brazil due to its strategy of co-ordinating grassroots housing organisations which are constantly and actively negotiating with urban councils and state governments all over the vast country, thereby taking on a political role. The Moradia movement is also well known and respected for its support of homeless and landless people in their mass occupations of unused land, using popular education and alternative technologies to help them to cling to their hard-won territory. Nicaragua El Salvador In Dublin, on Thursday night, there will be a social night in the Mother Red Caps Tavern, Christchurch, Back Lane, Dublin 8, starting at 8.30pm. The speakers are travelling around the island. On Thursday there will be different activities taking place in Cork, Derry, Galway, Limerick and Wexford. For more info, check LASC website: www.iol.ie/~lasc or phone (01) 676 04 35
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Jump To Comment: 1From Venezuela to Argentina-
South America in crisis and revolt
Globalise Resistance Public meeting this Saturday with Don Baron, activist from the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra - MST - Brasil.
3pm this Saturday 21st April at the
Vietnamese Centre, 45 Hardwicke Street
Dublin 1.
The Brazilian Landless Workers Movement is the largest social movement in Latin America and one of the most successful grassroots movements in the world. Hundreds of thousands of landless peasants have taken onto themselves the task of carrying out a long-overdue land reform in a country mired by an overly skewed land distribution pattern. Less than 3% of the population owns two-thirds of Brasil's arable land.
While 60% of Brasil's farmland lies idle, 25 million peasants struggle to survive by working in temporary agricultural jobs. The Landless Workers' Movement (MST) is a response to these inequalities. In 1985, with the support of the Catholic Church, hundreds of landless rural Brasilians took over an unused plantation in the south of the country and successfully established a cooperative there. They gained title to the land in 1987. Today more than 250,000 families have won land titles to over 15 million acres after MST land takeovers.
In 1999 alone, 25,099 families occupied unproductive land. There are currently 71,472 families in encampments throughout Brazil awaiting government recognition.
The success of the MST lies in its ability to organize. Its members have not only managed to secure land, thereby guaranteeing food security for their families, but have come up with an alternative socio-economic development model that puts people before profits. This is transforming the face of Brasil's countryside and Brasilian politics at large.
These gains have not come without a cost, however. Violent clashes between the MST and police, as well as landowners, have become commonplace, claiming the lives of many peasants and their leaders.
In the past 10 years, more than 1000 people have been killed as a result of land conflicts in Brasil. Prior to August 1999, only 53 of the suspected murders have been brought to trial.
The MST has resisted this repression and has been able to gather support from a broad international network of human rights groups, religious organizations, and labor unions. It has received a number of international awards, including The Right Livelihood Award and an education award from UNICEF.
In order to maximize production, the MST has created 60 food cooperatives as well as a small agricultural industries. Their literacy program involves 600 educators who presently work with adults and adolescents. The movement also monitors 1,000 primary schools in their settlements, in which 2,000 teachers work with about 50,000 kids.
Globalise Resistance is pleased to host a public meeting with Don Baron, a full time activist with the MST, this Saturday. Don will also be talking about the huge upsurge in struggle in other Latin American countries, from the community councils and the uprising against the IMF in Argentina, to the huge mobilisations to defend the popularly elected government of Victor Chavez against a CIA/ Big Business backed military coup in Venezuela. All are welcome.
http://www.mstbrazil.org/