Here's some information on our goals, what we believe as the National Planning Committee that is supporting the Forum, and ways to find out more about the foundation of the Forum as a process!

Goals:

Our goals for the 2010 US Social Forum in Detroit, MI, June 22-26, are:

* Create a space for social movement convergence and strategic discussion
* Advance social movements agenda for action and transformation
* Build stronger relationships and collaboration between movements
* Deepen our commitment to international solidarity and common struggle
* Strengthen local capacity to improve social conditions, organizing and movement building in Detroit

A Word on the US Social Forum
The US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression. The USSF will provide space to build relationships, learn from each other's experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and bring renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world.

The USSF sends a message to other people’s movements around the world that there is an active movement in the US opposing US Policies at home and abroad.

We must declare what we want our world to look like and begin planning the path to get there. A global movement is rising. The USSF is our opportunity to demonstrate to the world Another World is Possible!

People world-wide know that another world is needed. The Social Forum movement believes that is possible. At the US Social Forum people from all over the country gather to think about what kind of world is needed and how we can get there.

The US Social Forum is a very special kind of gathering: one that has never taken place in this country up to now. It isn't a conference with an agenda and a program of events; it's a gathering whose participants produce our own agenda and our own programs.

The mere process of planning, thinking, talking and preliminary organizing will move you, the people you're working with and the rest of us forward. The moment you think of an idea, you are already participating in the Social Forum.

Where will the USSF take place?
We will be headquartered in downtown Detroit at Cobo Hall and Hart Plaza. We will also host events at the Wayne County Community College District Downtown Campus and Wayne State University.

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What We Believe

We, the organizers of the first US Social Forum:

- Believe that there is a strategic need to unite the struggles of oppressed communities and peoples within the United States (particularly Black, Latino, Asian/ Pacific-Islander and Indigenous communities) to the struggles of oppressed nations in the Third World.

- Believe the US Social Forum should place the highest priority on groups that are actually doing grassroots organizing with working class people of color, who are training organizers, building long-term structures of resistance, and who can work well with other groups, seeing their participation in US Social Forum as building the whole, not just their part of it.

- Believe the US Social Forum must be a place where the voices of those who are most marginalized and oppressed from Indigenous communities can be heard--a place that will recognize Indigenous peoples, their issues and struggles.

- Believe the US Social Forum must create space for the full and equal participation of undocumented migrants and their communities.

- Believe the US Social Forum should link US-based youth organizers, activists, and cultural workers to the struggles of their brothers and sisters abroad, drawing common connections and exploring the deeper meanings of solidarity.

- Believe the US Social Forum is important because we must have a clear and unified approach at dealing with social justice issues, and meaningful positions on global issues.

- Believe that a US Social Forum sends a message to other people’s movements around the world that there is an active movement in the United States opposing U.S. policies at home and abroad.

- Believe that the US Social Forum will help build national networks that will be better able to collaborate with international networks and movements.

- We believe the US Social Forum is more than an event. It is an ongoing process to contribute to strengthening the entire movement, bringing together the various sectors and issues that work for global justice.

Please take the time to read the World Social Forum's Charter of Principles to learn more about the foundations of this process!