19th – 26th April

“Recipe for Disaster: Who is Cooking the Global Meal?”

Poster of Latin America Week 2010

Poster of LAW Film Festival

Flyer of LAW Film Festival

Calendar for Latin America Week 2010

Contacts for Latin America Week 2010

WHAT IS LATIN AMERICA WEEK

Latin America Week (LAW) is an annual programme of educational, cultural and campaigning events on issues relating to cultural, social, political, civil and economic rights in Latin America. The overall aim of LAW is to concentrate the attention of the public on Latin America for one week, so as to highlight the justice issues at stake in the region and thus to facilitate campaigning and solidarity actions between Ireland and Latin America. LAW is coordinated by the Latin America Solidarity Centre and organised locally by regional partners and activists.

Who will be the main speakers in LAW 2010?

• Carlos Gouveia da Silva is a member of the Associação dos Produtores Autônomos do Campo e da Cidade (Association of Rural and Urban Autonomous Producers), Rio de Janeiro, a grassroots organisation set up in the 80's by a workers' school of self-management. Its main aim is to create a solidarity link between agricultural workers in the city and countryside. At the time it was set up, it brought together people who manufactured farm equipment for family farms which were mobilising to bring about agrarian reform. Currently, APAC is involved in rural and urban food growing activists' networks with an agroecological perspective. APAC is a member of the Agroecology Coordinating Organisation of Rio de Janeiro, a network with members such as MST - Movement of Landless Workers. This organisation brings together grassroots movements working for food sovereignty and struggling against the Neoliberal policies of the Brazilian agribusiness, transgenic crops, concentration of land and the use of pesticides.

• Fergal Anderson, European Coordination of the international peasant movement Via Campesina, Brussels. Fergal is an activist from a rural community in Co. Galway. He visited Chiapas as the Zapatistas were starting their “other campaign” in 2006. This experience motivated him to study a Masters in Public Advocacy and Activism in Galway. He first came into contact with La Via Campesina at the anti-G8 mobilisations in Rostock in Germany in 2007 and became a volunteer interpreter at their meetings and mobilisations in Europe during 2008.

• TITLE OF FERGA'S TALKS: "Growing resistance - the fight to fix the food system"

  • Events in Dublin, contact Latin America Solidarity Centre on 016760435, info@lasc.ie
  • Events in Belfast, contact Latinoamerica Unida info@latinoamericaunida.org.uk
    P. 028 9024 4639
  • Events in Galway, Contact: 0872031764; 0867924095;
  • Events in Cork, Contact: 087 2214813; e-mail:edacork@gmail.com
    or visit www.edacork.org
  • Events in Limerick, Contact: Nancy and Eustorgio Serrano, or Angelica Risquez: 

  e-mail:nancy.serrano@ul.ie
  e-mail: eustorgio.serrano@gmail.com 
  e-mail: angelica.risquez@ul.ie
  Ph. : 061202192 / 061-331669/ 085-7436716/ 086-1644238;





FOOD SOVERGNITY





LAW 2009 introduced the concept of Food Sovereignty to the Irish public. We learnt that food sovereignty places people and the environment at the centre of the food production and distribution systems: “[it] is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.” (Nyeleni Declaration, March 2007). Unfortunately, in today's globalised world Food Sovereignty is an aspiration rather than a reality: food crises condemn millions to hunger while an irrational system degrades the nutritional value of the food we consume.

LAW 2010 will explore the economic, social and political forces which prevent communities from achieving Food Sovereignty. It will look at how the food producing capacity of entire regions has been undermined by market-led food production models. Events during the week will explore the rise in the price of oil, food speculation, the increase of cash crops and biofuels, the increased demand of emerging markets, unfair trade practices, etc. as causes of the food crisis. An important focus will be Europe's role in these Neoliberal processes.

LAW 2010 aims at building activism around the issue of food sovereignty in Ireland and Latin America. Ways to advance food sovereignty and to advocate the right to appropriate food will be discussed and opportunities for action will be identified.






Calendar for Latin America Week 2010







Contacts for Latin America Week 2010





Partners:

We gratefully acknowledges funding from:

For further details contact:
LASC , 5 Merrion Row, Dublin 2
Ph. 01 6760435
info@lasc.ie

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