The Chicago Social Forum will take place on Jan 31 / Feb 1, 2004. These pages are to help organize the event. All are welcome!

Next organizing meeting is Tues Sept 9th, 2003 at 6:30 p.m. at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition at 930 East 50th Steet at Drexel.

This page is just getting started, but anyone wanting to contribute to this effort is welcome to work here or at the meetings. -- TedErnst

Here are the [WorldSocialForum:CharterOfPrinciples] and /CharterOfPrinciples

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• /MeetingMinutes23Jul03
• /MeetingNotes06Aug03
• /MeetingNotes09Sep03

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From: Mary Zerkel [praxisafsc@igc.org] Wed 08/27/2003 2:33 PM

hi folks, i've got a draft of a brochure ready, just having trouble converting it to PDF (hopefully by the end of the week) meanwhile, i've pared down jerry's excellent text and the WSF principles a little bit and submit it below for comments -- please send comments asap so that i can get everyone a brochure to start outreach

What is a Social Forum?

• An open meeting place

that brings together a wide-variety of people from a wide variety of struggles’ for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, and interlinking for effective action! We are inspired by the highly successful World Social Forum, which has been held for three years in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This movement of movements has helped to develop global actions such as the international march against the war on February 15th, 2003 as well as spawning local and regional social forums all over the world.

• A convergence

of different communities including labor, students, people of color, women, immigrantís rights groups, community organizations, cultural organizations, artists, activists and many others. Our first Chicago Social Forum is currently scheduled to take place the weekend of Jan 31st and February 1st, 2004. We encourage you to help us make this gathering of peoples like no other event in Chicago, drawing together the broadest, most diverse array of communities possible.

• A process

of dialogue in which all these various communities can come together and explore common ground and common struggle. Building the event itself is only one part of this ongoing dialogue. Of particular importance to the social forum process is the linking of local struggles with global concerns and creating a space for a plurality of voices in envisioning ways to overcome barriers on both the local and the global level. Your voice is an integral part of the mosaic that makes up the Chicago community and we encourage you to share with us your own perspective.

We hope you will join us not only to build this unique event but also to be part of the process of building a vision of another Chicago.

Highlights from the World Social Forum Charter of Principles

The Chicago Social Forum is based upon and has agreed to abide by the Charter Principles that guide the World Social Forum. For the complete text of the Charter see http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br

• The World Social Forum (WSF)is an “open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action”, by groups and movements of people that are opposed to corporate globalization and economic and political structures that harm poor and working people and the environment.

• The WSF process is a permanent process of seeking and building alternatives to the current structures we oppose.

• The WSF is a world process. All the meetings that are held as part of this process have an international dimension.

• The alternatives proposed at the WSF stand in opposition to a process of globalization commanded by the large multinational corporations and by the governments and international institutions at the service of those corporations’ interests. Instead, the WSF alternatives respect universal human rights, social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples.

• The WSF will always be open to pluralism and to the diversity of activities as well as the diversity of genders, ethnicities, cultures, generations and physical capacities, providing they abide by this Charter of Principles. Neither party representations nor military organizations shall participate in the Forum.

• The WSF is a process that encourages its participant organizations and movements to situate their actions for change, both locally and globally, as issues of planetary citizenship.

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Draft Here is my (JerryMead?) proposed intro text for our brochure to precede the WSF Charter of Principles. What do you think? Please post your comments to the list...

When you look around your community what do you see: job loss, a lack of affordable housing, a public education system in crisis, cuts in public transportation, a growing prison industrial complex, privatization of public services, union busting, racism, anti-immigrant bashing, serious attacks on civil liberties, cuts in social services, militarism, environmental degradation, pollution, alienation and other problems? Join those of us who believe that.

Another Chicago is Possible!

A Call for Participation:

Become part of the process of seeking and building alternatives to the struggles in our community & help to develop The Chicago Social Forum.

What is a Social Forum? An open meeting place 'that brings together a wide-variety of people from a wide variety of struggles' for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, and interlinking for effective action! We are inspired by the highly successful World Social Forum, which has been held for three years in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This movement of movements has helped to develop global actions such as the international march against the war on February 15th, 2003 as well as spawning local and regional social forums all over the world.

A Social Forum is an event, a convergence of different communities including labor, students, people of color, women, immigrant's rights groups, community organizations, cultural organizations, artists, activists and many others. Our first Social Forum is currently scheduled to take place the weekend of Jan 31st and February 1st, 2004. We encourage you to help us make this gathering of peoples like no other event in Chicago, drawing together the broadest, most diverse array of communities possible.

But a Social Forum is more than one event. It is also a process. A process of dialogue in which all these various communities can come together and explore common ground and common struggle. Building the event itself is only one part of this ongoing dialogue. As stated in the World Social Forum Charter of Principals The World Social Forum at Porto Alegre was an event localized in time and place. From now on, in the certainty proclaimed at Porto Alegre that "another world is possible", it becomes a permanent process of seeking and building alternatives, which cannot be reduced to the events supporting it. We build the Social Forum in Chicago with that same spirit. Of particular importance to the social forum process is the linking of local struggles with global concerns and creating a space for a plurality of voices in envisioning ways to overcome barriers on both the local and the global level. Your voice is an integral part of the mosaic that makes up the Chicago community and we encourage you to share with us your own perspective.

We hope you will join us not only to build this unique event but also to be part of the process of building a vision of another Chicago.

The remainder of this brochure contains the World Social Forum Charter of Principals established at the First World Social Forum in Brazil in 2001. This document is the basis of what we are trying to build here in Chicago and we highly encourage you to read it.

More information about the World Social Forum and other regional forums can be found at the following websites:

World Social Forum: http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/home.asp

Links to Regional Social Forums (the New York Social Forum website is particularly helpful): http://www.northamericansocialforum.org/links.html

To become a member of the Chicago Social Forum listserv, visit the following website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChicagoSocialForum/

Or email JerryMead? at: [redjerry2@yahoo.com]

By phone contact MaryZerkel? at (312) 427-2533

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[World Social Forum] website (Jan 04 in India)