[Antiracism] Fwd: [westernmasssocialforum] Water Conference Update - Speakers and Workshops Set

[Rene and Susan Theberge]

Folks,

Just an update on the water conference "Our Communities, Our Water:  
Connecting the Local and the Global" September 22-24, University of  
Massachusetts' Campus Center...

Ray Rogers of the Killer Coke Campaign will be speaking Friday  
evening, 7:00 p.m., at our opening Keynote and of course Francis  
Moore Lappe will be joining us for the keynote on Saturday at 1:00  
p.m. Both of these events are open to the public.

Saturday will be a day of great speakers and workshops beginning with  
an 8:30 a.m. check-in. Sunday, beginning at 9:00, will be a day  
focused on building a regional support network.

Don't miss our Saturday evening social event at the Northampton  
Center for the Arts with Sneak Previews of two great movies "Water  
Warriors" and "Water First" followed by live music, with The Reagan  
Babies and Rob Skelton and Pitchfork. Plus a dance performance from  
RESISTDANCE

Please forward to relevant list-serves that you are on and help the  
event go more smoothly by pre-registering at  
www.massglobalaction.org. You can also register using the form below.  
The latest conference schedule can also be viewed on-line.

Thanks,

  Jonathan Leavitt and Doug Renick of Mass Global Action


Water Privatization: Global and Local Issues in the 21st Century
September 22-24, University of Massachusetts, Campus Center

Workshops:
Local Initiatives for a Human Right to Water
Equitable access to sufficient, safe, affordable water (human right  
to water) is a key problem facing our communities, whether the water  
services are public or private. This workshop hopes to address the  
gap in the existing legal framework - neither Canada nor the US  
recognize the international obligation of the human right to water.  
Should communities establish local laws that will implement minimum  
rates for the "40-60 liters / day / person" right to water, a ban on  
water shutoffs, democratic participatory decision making for water  
rates (affordability), quality (safe water) within their utility?  
What might be effective strategies for a local initiative?

Global Water Struggles: Communities Resist Worldwide against  
Corporate Water Grab
Hear about worldwide resistance to water privatization; from  
Cochabamba, Bolivia to  Nicaragua, to India and beyond citizens are  
successfully fighting multi-national control of their water.

Can't Live Without It so the Fight is On! How grassroots social  
movements are claiming their right to land and water.
Water and Land are resources that we all can't live without, but  
access to safe water and land to grow food is becoming increasingly  
unequal in our world today. In this interactive workshop,  
participants will look at the impact of global trade and neo-liberal  
policies on communities around the world and at examples of  
grassroots social movements in Haiti, the U.S., Brazil and Mexico  
organizing to regain control over these vital resources.

Water and Trade
How do trade agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO agreements like  
GATS and other international trade agreements threaten the ability of  
communities to protect their water resources? How do they promote  
privatization of water/sewer services? What does it mean when the  
World Trade Organizations says that local regulations cannot be "more  
burdensome then necessary"?

Myths of Privatization
What are the myths that corporations use to control the dialogue  
around privatization? Learn the tools for understanding these myths  
and effectively counter them with your own organizing.

Taking on the Soft drink Giants
Learn about the International Coke Boycott and the ongoing work  
against both Pepsi and Nestle that is underway and how it connects  
directly to the issue of control of water as well as labor rights  
worldwide.

Pumping for Profit: Bottled and Bulk Water
A massive international marketing campaign by the big four beverage  
corporations to turn water into a designer food item is threatening  
the water supplies for communities' world-wide and undermining public  
confidence in municipal water systems.  Find out what happens when a  
bottled water company comes to town and what you can do about it.

Municipal Water Systems: Public Ownership, Private Ownership, and the  
Challenge of Public Private Partnerships.
  Anatomy of a Winning Campaign
What happens when your local water system is put up for sale? Who  
controls the town's water? What can you do to challenge corporate  
control and keep your water supply locally owned and operated? In  
this workshop, we'll learn the basic tools for challenging water  
privatization in your community--from a seasoned community activist,  
a water workers' union president, and an experienced campaigner. Get  
ready to learn not only what, but how. From educating your neighbors  
to influencing local elected officials to talking with the media,  
learn from folks who have been there!

Faith communities and water Roundtable
Water has been symbolic of life, blessings, spiritual cleansing in  
the writings and ceremonies of many faith communities throughout the  
world. Find out how some Faith communities are participating in a  
dialogue about protecting water. We will share stories about actions  
and programs in our faith communities in a roundtable format with  
help from several resource people who will serve as facilitators.  We  
will inspire each other as seek collaborations.

Public Trust and the Commons
Does your state law say that the groundwater and surface waters of  
our state are held in the public trust. What does this mean for your  
community?  How are these laws applied? What rules and legal  
principles govern them?

Preserving and Promoting the Strengths of Public Systems
  86% of Americans get their water from publicly owned and operated  
utilities and have for many years - so we must be doing something  
right.  Yet, public funds for water infrastructure are less available  
than they once were, leaving more and more communities open to offers  
of privatization.  In this workshop we will identify the old and new  
ways that citizens and water workers from Brazil to Washington, DC   
are ensuring universal access to clean and affordable water through  
public systems, including community control of public utilities, new  
strategies for accountability, sources for public financing, and  
strategies for more equity.  Find out what you can do in your  
community to prevent privatization with positive alternatives for  
efficiently financing and managing water in the public interest.

New Paradigm Organizing: Communities Just Say NO to Corporations
Frustrated with regulations that let corporations pollute your  
community and planet? Some communities are taking a new approach to  
stop corporate predation and pollution in its tracks. Learn how  
communities in PA and NH are just saying NO.

Films that will be "Sneak Previewed"

Water First (Amy Hart) is an ongoing documentary film project about  
global water issues. The section shown at this event is set in  
Johannesburg South Africa where residents are protesting against the  
installation of pre-paid water meters. Many of the residents cannot  
afford to pay for water, much less to pay ahead. When they cannot  
pay, their water is shut off. Many residents claim their water was  
cut off despite the fact that they owe nothing. While the government  
official from the South African Department of Water And Forestry  
insists that the water is never cut off, since it goes against the  
constitutional rights of the people, we go into homes where the water  
has been shut off for over 3 months. In the streets, police threaten  
to shoot at the chanting crowd – but they stand strong and are  
willing to die for the sake of clean water.

Water Warriors (Liz Miler) Water Warriors, is the story of one  
community's determination to fight the seemingly inevitable path of  
privatization. The film will capture up close the passionate and  
determined players in this dramatic conflict: seasoned community  
organizers, local workers, corporate managers pleading for  
efficiency; and local government officials, torn between state  
directives and citizens needs.

Highland  Park,  U.S.A. was once the center of a thriving car  
industry and the birthplace of Henry Ford's assembly line. Today the  
city is on the verge of financial and physical collapse and as a  
result is under a state take over. A team of corporate emergency  
managers have been appointed to get the city out of its financial  
crisis and to do this they have raised water rates, attached unpaid  
bills to property taxes, and are looking to privatize the community's  
remaining valuable resource - the water plant.

These measures have resulted in an unprecedented number of water shut  
offs and residents are at risk of losing their homes and their voice  
in what happens to this public resource. For the residents of  
Highland Park the threat of water privatization is simply the last  
straw, and an impetus to fight back.

Biographies of Presenters:

Arnie Alpert, New  Hampshire Program Coordinator for the American  
Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization dedicated to social  
justice and peace.  He has closely followed the impact of  
globalization and "free trade" agreements on labor and water since  
the mid-1990s, and has spoken and written extensively on the topics.   
He is a member of UNITE-HERE, and is also active in the NH Water  
Table, a statewide network which brings together grassroots activists  
fighting commodification of water.

Saulo Araujo Global Program Assistant, Grassroots International has  
dedicated himself to working for the resource rights of rural and  
urban communities in Brazil, Mexico and the U.S. In his native  
country of Brazil, Saulo worked with rural communities in the arid  
northeast region to develop sustainable water sources and protect  
local genetic materials. He also worked with water management  
programs in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. In  New England, he has  
worked with environmental justice groups in inner city neighborhoods,  
supporting the work of residents to protect open and green spaces,  
food security and environmental health. Currently, Saulo is a member  
of the first class of the Environmental Leadership Program/Greater  
Boston Regional Network and a member of the grant-making committee of  
the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund (NEGEF). Saulo has a  
Master's Degree in International Development and Social Change from  
Clark University.

Ruth Caplan is National Campaign Coordinator for the Alliance  for  
Democracy's Defending Water for Life Campaign which is organizing in  
the Northeast and on the West Coast to stop commodification and  
privatization of water and water services.  In 2003, she helped  
organize the Water Allies Network, a diverse national network of  
people and groups who believe "secure and equitable access to clean  
water is a human right and must be protected for all generations and  
all living things." She is part of the global Our World Is Not For  
Sale network opposing the WTO and has written "Trading Away Our  
Water."  Caplan also chairs the national Sierra Club's Water  
Privatization Task Force. Her history of activism includes helping to  
stop three nuclear plants on Lake Ontario and serving as Executive  
Director of Environmental Action which supported grassroots campaigns  
and named the Dirty Dozen members of the U.S. Congress.  In 2004, she  
received the national Sierra Club's Special Service Award for her  
work on corporate accountability, international trade, water  
privatization, and energy policy.

Tony Clarke is the founder and executive director of the Polaris  
Institute, which assists civil society organizations, both in Canada  
and internationally, to develop new capacities and tools for  
democratic social change in an age of corporate globalization. One of  
the main projects at the Institute has to do with water issues such  
as the privatization of water services, bottled water and bulk water  
exports. Through this project, Polaris works with citizens' groups,  
public service workers and social movements who are engaged in  
frontline struggles on these water issues in Canada, the United  
States , South Africa and India. Internationally, Tony has been a  
keynote and panel speaker at conferences on water issues in Europe,  
Africa  and Asia. He is the co-author [with Maude Barlow] of Blue  
Gold: The Corporate Theft of the World's Water [2002], which has been  
published in 40 countries.

Art Cohen was trained in public health as well as law, he has been  
working in public and environmental health for over 30 years.  During  
the first half of the 1980's, he managed a county's public water and  
sewerage company in Southern Maryland.  The company was responsible  
for providing potable water to and collecting and treating sewage  
from 35,000 households.  More recently, he directed a local public  
health department in Southeastern Connecticut.  He currently lives in  
Baltimore , Maryland and devotes much of his time to opposing water  
privatization, and working with many others on ways to improve public  
water supply and sanitation systems for low income persons living in  
the world's larger cities.

Mike Esposito is president of the Utility Workers Union of America  
Local 423, representing about 250 workers in New Jersey. The local is  
currently challenging rate increases proposed by New Jersey American  
Water, a subsidiary of Germany's RWE. Mike has worked at his local
  water utility for 16 years.

Armando Flores has a law degree from the University of El Salvador;  
in 1991 he becomes co-founder of the Committee for the Defense of the  
Consumer - CDC; in 1989 and 1990, he is the coordinator of the  
education program for the Federation of Consumer Cooperatives of El  
Salvador; between 1991 and 1995 he is Vice Director of CDC; in 1996  
he is the Coordinator for the Consumers International for the Central  
American and the Caribbean region and has been the CDC Director since  
1997.

Amy Hart is a New York-based filmmaker. Currently she works on a  
production of a feature length film on water issues in Africa. In  
addition to indie filmmaking, she also produces three national TV  
series on public health issues for the University at Albany. Amy Hart  
worked at Miramax Films, Fine Line Features and New Line Cinema  
before starting her own film company, Hart Productions.

Patricia Jones works as the Environmental Justice program manager at  
UUSC, More information available at: www.uusc.org/

Susan Howatt is the national water campaigner with the Council of  
Canadians, the largest citizen watchdog group in Canada. Before  
joining the Council, she was the international campaigner with the  
Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), a network that works with  
communities impacted by the mining industry in Indonesia. Susan was  
the cofounder of Unofficial Opposition, an umbrella group that  
advocated for social services in British Columbia. She has worked  
extensively in media and communications for anti-poverty,  
environmental and human rights groups in Vancouver and served as a  
human rights observer in  Chiapas, Mexico.

Karl Flecker is the Director of the Polaris Institute's water program  
that includes managing campaigns like Inside the Bottle, a project  
dedicated to working with community coalitions to challenge the  
bottled water industry in North America.  He has 20 + years  
experience in community and international development work with a  
strong focus on equity issues & labour issues.  Karl has done  
research  & campaign work for the Council Canadians -- Bovine Growth  
Hormone file, Canadian Labour Congress, & the David Suzuki Foundation.

Francis Moore Lappe is the author or coauthor of fifteen books. Her  
1971 three-million-copy bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet,  
continues to awaken readers to the human-made causes of hunger and  
the power of our everyday choices to create the world we want.

Her newly released Democracy's Edge has been widely praised.  
Historian Howard Zinn called the book "poetic and passionate,"  
adding: "A small number of people in every generation are  
forerunners, in thought, action, spirit, who swerve past the barriers  
of greed and power to hold a torch high for the rest of us. Lappé is  
one of those."

Democracy's Edge is the completion of a trilogy which began in 2002  
with Hope's Edge, written with her daughter Anna Lappé. It is the  
30th anniversary sequel to Lappé's first book. Jane Goodall said of  
Hope's Edge: "Absolutely one of the most important books as we enter  
the 21st century." Second in the trilogy is You Have the Power:  
Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear, written with Jeffrey Perkins.

Frances and Anna Lappé lead the Cambridge-based Small Planet  
Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education  
to bring democracy to life. Together they founded the Small Planet  
Fund which solicits and channels resources to democratic social  
movements, especially those featured in Hope's Edge.

In 1975, with Joseph Collins Lappé launched the California-based  
Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First). Its  
publications continue to shape the international debate on the root  
causes of hunger and poverty. The Institute was described by The New  
York Times as one of the nation's "most respected food think tanks."

In 1990, Lappé co-founded the Center for Living Democracy, a ten-year  
initiative to help accelerate the spread of democratic innovations.  
Lappé served as founding editor of the Center's American News  
Service, which placed solutions-oriented news stories in almost 300  
newspapers nationwide.

Lappé's books have been used in a broad array of courses in hundreds  
of colleges and universities and in more than 50 countries. Her  
articles and opinion pieces have appeared in publications as diverse  
as the New York Times, O Magazine and Christian Century. Her  
television and radio appearances have included PBS with Bill Moyers,  
the Today Show, CBS Radio, and National Public Radio. She is a  
contributing editor to Yes! Magazine, a founding councilor of the  
World Future Council, and sits on the advisory board to the Simple  
Living television series.

Lappé is a sought after public speaker and has received 17 honorary  
doctorates from distinguished institutions. In 1987 in Sweden, Lappé  
became the fourth American to receive the Right Livelihood Award,  
sometimes called the "Alternative Nobel," for her "vision and work  
healing our planet and uplifting humanity."

Jonathan Leavitt has served as a Field Manager for Clean Water  
Action, founded the Lawrence Grassroots Initiative, and served as its  
Executive Director for seven years, founded the Massachusetts Green  
Party in 1996 and served as its first staff person and then initiated  
and ran the Jill Stein for Governor campaign before leaving to run  
for State Representative as the Green Party's first ever Clean  
Elections candidate. After the campaign Jonathan founded the  
Massachusetts Anti-Corporate Clearinghouse, and in October of 2003  
was brought in to coordinate the development and staffing for the  
Boston Social Forum. He is a founder of Massachusetts Global Action  
and is currently consulting for the "Our Communities, Our Water"  
project.

Bill McCann is a member of the Board of Directors of SOG.  He is also  
Chair of SOG's Legislative and Governmental Issues Committee.  He is  
a former six term State Legislator, serving two terms as Assistant  
Democratic Whip, and a retired SEIU Field Representative/Organizer.  
He was Chair of the School Board for six years [1974-1980] and also  
served two terms as Vice Chair. He has been responsible for drafting  
SOG's Pro Se Appeals to NH DES, the NH Water Council and the NH  
Wetlands Council.

Jake Miller, Communications Coordinator at Grassroots International,  
recently returned from a program visit to the northeast of Brazil,  
where he met with social movements and social change organizations  
workings on sustainable irrigation and agriculture projects and saw  
the social and ecological consequences of large-scale dams for  
irrigating agro-industrial plantations and hydro-electric power. Jake  
has been a student of Brazil for nearly 20 years and has lived in  
Salvador, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro . In addition to his work at  
Grassroots, Jake is a free-lance writer and photographer who has  
written and published his photographs in a variety of publications  
including the New York Times, Peacework, and Science. He writes about  
politics, culture and science. He has published more than 40  
children's books on topics like the biology of spiders and lizards  
and the history of the U.S. civil rights movement. An avid birder,  
Jake is particularly interested in the ways that agro-ecology can  
benefit both human and natural worlds.

Liz Miller, is an educator, community media artist, and director of  
social issue documentary films and new media. Her last documentary,  
Novela, Novela, has been integrated into high school curricula and  
used by international coalitions working against violence and  
defending the rights of women, children and glbt populations (http:// 
www.redlizardmedia.com/novela/ or http://www.puntos.org.ni). Her  
current film, Water Warriors is an hour long documentary on the  
battle for public water in Highland Park, Michigan is due for release  
in 2007. Miller teaches video production at Concordia University in   
Montreal. She is also a faculty advisor of "Cinema Politica," an  
international student network organizing a political film series  
across Canada, Mexico,  France and the United
  States.

Suren Moodliar is a co-coordinator of the North American Alliance for  
Fair Employment (NAFFE). His organizing experiences range from the  
liberation struggle in South Africa and the divestment movement in  
the US , to campus and union organizing as well as managing  
international NGO networks and impacting international treaties. His  
formal education is in political science and regional planning with  
degrees from Indiana University  and the University of California,   
Los  Angeles. Suren played a major role in organizing the Boston  
Social Forum--coordinating the program for the entire event, among  
many other things. He is a founder of Massachusetts Global Action.

Ward Morehouse, of Northampton, is a co-founder of Shays2: Western  
Mass Committee on Corporations and Democracy as well as a co-founder  
of the Holyoke Citizens for Open Government, which has been  
challenging the privatization of that city's wastewater treatment  
system by a multi-national corporation for 2 ½ years. He was a co- 
founder in 1994 of POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and  
Democracy). Many of his essays are included in the standard  
introductory book for POCLAD work, Defying Corporations, Defining  
Democracy. Morehouse is internationally known for his work struggling  
against the corporate assault on human rights and a co-founder of the  
International Coalition for Justice in Bhopal, India, working on  
behalf of the victims of the 1984 Union Carbide Corporation's  
chemical spill in that city. Morehouse has written or edited some 20  
books, including Building Sustainable Communities, Abuse of Power:  
The Social Performance of Multinational Corporations, and The  
Underbelly of the U.S. Economy.

Nancy Munger is a drummaker and boatbuilder living on Cape Cod (MA).  
She is a member of the Women's International League for Peace and  
Freedom, working on local water issues as well as being on the  
National Leadership team of WILPF's "Save the Water" campaign.

Timothy Newman graduated in May 2006 from Clark University  in  
Worcester, Mass., where he majored in Sociology and International  
Development.  At Clark, he helped found the Clark chapter of the  
Student Global AIDS Campaign, and helped launch the CAN Coke  
campaign, which is working to get Coke products off Clark's campus.   
He has done internships with Food & Water Watch, Africa Action and  
the National Society for Human Rights in Namibia.

Zandra Rice is a national field organizer with Corporate  
Accountability International, an organization that protects people  
and the environment by challenging corporate abuses. A graduate of  
Gonzaga University, she has worked on electoral campaigns in Maine  
and New Hampshire, most notably as a State Deputy Communications  
Director with America Coming Together during the 2004 elections. She  
lives in Boston and campaigns to expose and challenge the corporate  
control of water and to protect our fundamental human right to water.

Jessica Roach is a Senior Organizer with the Water for All Campaign  
at Food & Water Watch. Prior to joining Food & Water Watch, Jessica  
worked as a Legislative Assistant for Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), where  
she specialized in trade and economic policy. Jessica has also  
campaigned with Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, working to halt  
WTO meetings in Seattle in 1999.  She holds an MA in International  
Studies from the American University, and a BA in Political Science  
from the University of Washington.

Ray Rogers of the Killer Coke Campaign. www.killercoke.org

Annette Smith is executive director of Vermonters for a Clean  
Environment, www.vce.org, a grassroots organization based in Danby,  
Vermont.VCE grew out of opposition to a billion dollar energy project  
proposed for southwestern Vermont in 1999, and has continued under  
Annette's leadership to deal with issues of concern to Vermonters  
such as mining, pesticides, large farms, landfills, energy, safe  
drinking water and water rights.A graduate of Vassar College, Smith  
lives off the grid with solar panels on a small farm, hand milks a  
cow and grows her own food.

Claudia Torrelli lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay . She is an  
environmental and social activist and is on the staff of Global Labor  
Strategies and Redes (Friends of the Earth, Uruguay) which played a  
key role in the historic 2004 Uruguayan constitutional referendum  
campaign which banned water privatization and made water a  
fundamental human right under the Uruguayan constitution. She is also  
an activist in the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a network of civil  
society and labor organizations in Latin America, and a part of  the  
Netherlands based Transnational Institute's Alternative Regionalism  
Program.. She holds a degree in International Relations from the  
University of Montevideo .

Olivia Zink is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire  with a  
degree in Political Science and a minor in Sustainable Living, and a  
graduate of Southern New Hampshire University with a master's degree  
in Community Economic Development. For the last five years she has  
volunteered with a grassroots community group called Save Our  
Groundwater (SOG), serving as a member of the Board of Directors and  
the NH Water Table. SOG have built and mobilized coalitions of  
individuals, organizations, and state and local officials who are  
interested in keeping water in the public trust. Olivia is currently  
working for Star Island , a non-profit in Portsmouth NH.

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