Learning More about the Los Angeles Social Forum
The Los Angeles Social Forum is Scheduled for June 27-29, 2008
For driving in to USC for the LA Social Forum, directions are available
at: http://tinyurl.com/5eofdl
Registration begins at 6 PM on Friday. The first event begins at 7:45
pm. Organizational and vendor tables will be available starting at 6 pm.
Use the parking at Entrance # 3 off of Figueroa at USC McCarthy Way
and Parking Structure X, on the left. As you enter the parking
structure, say that you are with the LA Social Forum - the parking fee
will then be $5.00 for the day.
The registration tables and all other tables are in Alumni Park. This is
directly West of the parking structure. About 500 ft West past McCarthy
Quad (grassy area), under the trees. It is directly South of Von
KleinSmid Building (VKC)
Friday night starting at 8:45 you are invited to a drum circle
celebrating the drums and drummers of Africa, Asia, Latin America,
Europe and all points. Bring your drums, or just bring yourself and your
enthusiasm!
A map is at:
http://lasocialforum.org/joomla/images/downloadfiles/uscmap.jpg
DRAFT Schedule: Preliminary Schedule/Agenda
List of Endorsers and Sponsors:
LASF Endorsers/Sponsors
Register to attend personally at:
LASF
registration
Register to present a workshop at:
LASF Workshop Submission form
There are some workshop descriptions posted on this site:
LASF Workshops
Sign up as a volunteer
LASF Volunteer sign-up
A 4 up Spanish/English handbill has been added to be downloaded from the website (under the resources section):
LASF Resources
Tabling reservations:
Tabling
registration
Program Ad reservations:
LASF Program Ad
registration
Blog for foro social Los Angeles:
forosociallosangeles.org
Directions to USC:
USC Directions
The following information may be useful in understanding where the LA Social Forum comes from and what it could become.
What is a Social Forum?
The World Social Forum (Wiki)
and its local and regional offspring are open meeting spaces where
progressive social movements, networks, non-profits and other civil
society organizations get together to pursue their thinking, debate
ideas, formulate strategies and proposals, share experiences, and
network for effective action. The forums bring together people who want
to build a more peaceful, sustainable, and participatory world. They
are characterized by plurality and diversity; they are nongovernmental
and nonpartisan. A social forum is what you make it — a meeting place,
a debating forum, an exchange of ideas and solutions, a theater stage,
a celebration, a festival, a bazaar — it can be any or all of these.
About 20,000 people attended the first World Social Forum
in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The event, which has been held
each year since then, drew 150,000 in 2005. The sixth WSF was
“polycentric,” held in three locations: Caracas, Venezuela; Bamako,
Mali; and Karachi, Pakistan. The next WSF is being planned for Nairobi,
Kenya in January 2007.
The World Social Forum was created to counter the influence and purposes of the World Economic Forum (Wiki),
an annual meeting of top business and government leaders “committed to
improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to
shape global, regional and industry agendas.
What’s Going on in North America?
Momentum is building in and around the US with several new forums starting up in 2006-07, including the first with a national focus.
- The Midwest Social Forum (Wikipedia) grew out of the Midwest Radical Scholars and Activists Conference in 1983. That annual event morphed into RadFest in the late 1990s and then took on the “social forum” name in 2003. The 2006 event is in July in Milwaukee. Who knew the hotbed of US radicalism is in Wisconsin? Must be the cheese!
- A national United States Social Forum is being planned for Atlanta, Georgia in June 2007.
- Chicago held its third annual forum in May 2006.
- London, Canada, held its second annual forum in June 2006.
- Houston, Texas started up a new forum in April 2006.
- The Southeast Social Forum (Wikipedia) was started in June 2006 in Durham, North Carolina.
- Maine is starting up a new forum in July 2006.
- The Border Social Forum (scroll down for English) is being planned for October 2007 in Juárez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
- Boston (Wikipedia) held a forum in July 2004. A group is now planning a forum for Western Massachussetts.
- New York. held social forums in November 2001, January 2003, and November 2004. Their NYCsocialForum.org site is down now, but there are some interesting pages still up that show some of their planning process (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4). The people behind it are not currently planning another local event, but are participating in the upcoming national event in Atlanta.
Some Additional Background Information on the World Social Forum
Documentary:
Founders [WSF]:
Thematic areas of the 2001 forum [WSF]:
- Production of wealth and social reproduction
- Access to wealth and sustainability
- Empowering civil society and the public realm
- Political power and ethics in the new society
The Charter of Principles.
Speakers at 2006 forum in Caracas, Venezuela included [CNN, CNN]:
- Venezuela President Hugo Chavez
- Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano
- Argentine Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel
- American peace activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004 and who set up a protest camp near Bush’s ranch in Texas in 2005
- Former French first lady Danielle Mitterrand
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