Skip to main content

Throughout the world, solutions to some of the greatest challenges of the day are either nascent or fully thriving. Organized people's movements - sometimes with help from supportive government - are changing the structures which cause violence, poverty, inequality, and environmental destruction.

Home

Articles

“MRS. CLINTON CAN HAVE HER FACTORIES”: A HAITIAN SWEATSHOP WORKER SPEAKS

Submitted by admin on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 08:05

By Beverly Bell

Marjorie Valcelat ran an embroidery machine in a factory from 2005 to 2008. She says the experience made her so sick and weak that she’s not felt able to work since then.

I had three children I had to take care of; their father had left. And since I hadn’t had enough schooling, I didn’t have the skills to do much. So I said to myself, “I’m going to work at a factory.” When I got there, they showed me how to run the machines to embroider slips and nightshirts. I spent a month training, but during that time they didn’t pay me; I had to pay them for the training.

  • Another Haiti is Possible
  • Other Worlds
  • Workers' Rights & the Assembly Sector
  • Read more
  • Share this

WEEDING CORPORATE POWER OUT OF AGRICULTURAL POLICIES: COMMUNITIES MOBILIZE FOR FOOD AND FARM JUSTICE

Submitted by admin on Sat, 04/27/2013 - 14:41

By Tory Field and Beverly Bell

From the school cafeteria to rural tomato farms, and all the way to pickets at the White House, people are challenging the ways in which government programs benefit big agribusiness to the detriment of small- and mid-sized farmers. Urban gardeners, PTA parents, ranchers, food coops, and a host of others are organizing to make the policies that govern our food and agricultural systems more just, accountable, and transparent. They are spearheading alternative policies on the local, state, national, and international levels. Some advances include the following:

  • Other Worlds
  • Food Sovereignty
  • Transforming the U.S. Food Supply Chain
  • Read more
  • Share this

A HARD DAY’S LABOR FOR $4.76: THE OFFSHORE ASSEMBLY INDUSTRY IN HAITI

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/25/2013 - 07:27

By Beverly Bell and Alexis Erkert
April 25, 2013

“Haiti offers a marvelous opportunity for American investment. The run-of-the-mill Haitian is handy, easily directed, and gives a hard day’s labor for 20 cents, while in Panama the same day’s work costs $3,” wrote Financial America in 1926.[i] That may be the most honest portrayal of the offshore industry in Haiti to date. Today, the US, the UN, multilateral lending institutions, corporate investors, and others are more creative in their characterizations. They spin Haiti’s high-profit labor as being in the interest of the laborer, and as a major vehicle for what they call “development.”

  • Another Haiti is Possible
  • Other Worlds
  • Citizen Organizing & Politics
  • Workers' Rights & the Assembly Sector
  • Read more
  • Share this

SEEDS OF CHANGE: SHIFTING NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL POLICIES

Submitted by admin on Sun, 04/21/2013 - 12:55

By Tory Field and Beverly Bell

“The only way we’re going to… change the most basic attitude of policy-makers… is for you and me to become the policy-makers, taking charge of every aspect of our food system – from farm to fork,”said Jim Hightower, the former agriculture commissioner of Texas.[i]

The need for us to become the policy-makers to create a just and sustainable food supply chain is urgent, because in the hands of the US government it has become increasingly unjust and unsustainable. Over the past 50 years, agricultural policies that once supported small- and mid-sized farmers have been whittled away. As a result, more than 100 family farms go out of business every week.[ii] The government has instead turned food production over to agribusiness and allowed large firms to buy up small producers and traders. Currently, in the pork, poultry, beef, and grain markets, the biggest four firms control more than half the market share. Three companies control 90% of the massive global grain trade.

  • Other Worlds
  • Food Sovereignty
  • Read more
  • Share this

SMALL FARMS FIGHT BACK: FOOD AND COMMUNITY SELF-GOVERNANCE

Submitted by admin on Sun, 04/14/2013 - 09:45

By Tory Field and Beverly Bell

Heather Retberg stood on the steps of the Blue Hill, Maine town hall surrounded by 200 people. “We are farmers,” she told the crowd, “who are supported by our friends and our neighbors who know us and trust us, and want to ensure that they maintain access to their chosen food supply.”

Blue Hill is one of a handful of small Maine towns that have been taking bold steps to protect their local food system. In 2011, they passed an ordinance exempting their local farmers and food producers from federal and state licensure requirements when these farmers sell directly to customers.

  • Other Worlds
  • Food Sovereignty
  • Read more
  • Share this

“LOSING HAITI, THAT IS SOMETHING ELSE”: HAITIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ORGANIZE

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/11/2013 - 12:58


By Beverly Bell

“Why is Haiti so poor?” That’s what deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez asked, over and over, in a video shown at a recent memorial at the State University of Haiti. In the courtyard of the School of Social Sciences, a repository of radical intelligentsia and organizers, professors and students took the stage to sing, drum, and recite poetry, and to make impassioned speeches about Chávez’s opposition to privatization and the US empire.

  • Another Haiti is Possible
  • Just Reconstruction
  • Other Worlds
  • Citizen Organizing & Politics
  • Socio-economic Crisis & Survival
  • Read more
  • Share this

FARMERS AND CONSUMERS V. MONSANTO: DAVID MEETS GOLIATH

Submitted by admin on Sun, 04/07/2013 - 19:50

By Tory Field and Beverly Bell

Bordering an interstate highway in Arkansas, a giant billboard with a photo of a stoic-looking farmer watches over the speeding traffic. He’s staring into the distance against the backdrop of a glowing wheat field, with the caption “America’s Farmers Grow America.” It’s an image to melt all our pastoral hearts.

Until we read the small print in the corner: “Monsanto.”

  • Other Worlds
  • Food Sovereignty
  • Transforming the U.S. Food Supply Chain
  • Read more
  • Share this

ANOTHER POOR BLACK BOY DEAD IN HAITI

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/04/2013 - 08:29

By Beverly Bell
April 4, 2013

Inside the USAID-headquarters-turned-courthouse in Port-au-Prince, the case against former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier was being heard, in a trial unlikely to bring justice to the hundreds of thousands killed and tortured by him and his father François.

Vexed by the circus show of judges and defense lawyers, I fled the building and hailed a collective taxicab. The driver asked my nationality. When I told him, he said, “If you don’t mind, I want to ask you something. Are there all these children sleeping in the streets and under bridges in your country?”

  • Another Haiti is Possible
  • Other Worlds
  • U.S. Aid & Policies
  • Socio-economic Crisis & Survival
  • Read more
  • Share this

FROM GROWING PROFIT TO GROWING FOOD: CHALLENGING CORPORATE RULE

Submitted by admin on Mon, 04/01/2013 - 08:04

Just outside of the small town of Maumelle, Arkansas sits your run-of-the-mill American strip mall. And as in so many other box store hubs, a Walmart dominates the landscape.

But something is a shade different about this one; its big, looming letters are not the standard blue. These letters, in a new, green hue, spell out “Walmart Neighborhood Market.” These “neighborhood markets” are a tactic in Walmart’s conquest of the grocery industry. The nation’s world’s biggest retail store now captures more than a fourth of the domestic grocery market.

  • Other Worlds
  • Food Sovereignty
  • Transforming the U.S. Food Supply Chain
  • Read more
  • Share this

Chávez’ Legacy: A New Model of Popular Power

Submitted by Beverly Bell on Fri, 03/29/2013 - 11:18

 


An Interview with Camille Chalmers
By Beverly Bell
March 29, 2013

 

 

Economist Camille Chalmers is a leader in Latin American social movements and executive secretary of the Platform for Alternative Development in Haiti (PAPDA).

 

Hugo Chávez’ battle, with all the strength of determination the man had, is a huge legacy for every person everywhere who wants liberation for all.

  • Another Haiti is Possible
  • Other Worlds
  • Citizen Organizing & Politics
  • Read more
  • Share this
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • …
  • next ›
  • last »

Alternatives

  • Another Haiti is Possible
  • Defending the Global Commons
  • Claiming & Protecting Water
  • Guaranteed Access to Healthcare
  • Community Control of Knowledge
  • Women's Rights and Gender Justice
  • Gift Economies
  • Solidarity Economies
  • Indigenous Territory & Resource Rights
  • Worker Ownership
  • Agrarian Reform
  • Environmental Protection & Zero Waste
  • Food Sovereignty
  • Transforming the Food Supply Chain

Search

Support Other Worlds

Follow Other Worlds on:

Facebook Twitter Tumblr This site (RSS)

subscribe to our articles and updates

subscribe to our rss feed

Delivered by FeedBurner

Design and development


adolopez [at] gmail.com