August 1st, 2006

WSF 2007 - AFRICA

World Social Forum Consultation


The next World Social Forum program and themes will be based on information gathered about initiatives and campaigns for a new world through the World Social Forum consultation process. It only takes 5 minutes for your organization to participate in the consultation process.

Dear friend,

In past years, your organization participated in an active way in some or all of the World Social Forums (WSF). We, members of the International Council’s Methodology and Contents Commissions, are inviting you to participate in the consultation process. We would like you to help create the program of the upcoming WSF, to be held from January 20th to 25th 2007, in Nairobi, Kenya. There is an instrument to do so, the preparatory consultation, which is accessible through the internet and that you can help to reproduce and disseminate through paper form. The consultation process is interactive. It is both essential to WSF organizers in Africa, and the data collected can be accessed by any organization involved in this process. It is the first step for a permanent information and exchanging system among the WSF participants.

The idea of doing preparatory consultations was born in 2004, during the preparation of WSF 2005 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The consultation was essential to organize that Forum because it made more visible the initiatives for another possible world and has multiplied the dialogs, proposals and common actions. Some months before the event and the beginning of the activities registration, each one of the organizations present in the previous WSFs was asked to announce the intended themes and any other urgent subject that they would like to present.

From the answers and their interpretation, it was possible to identify eleven thematic terrains where participants whose actions converged around similar goals could gather. At the moment of the activity registration, each organization could visualize, in the internet, other similar proposals and propose, if convenient, some kind of articulation before the WSF began. In addition, the same thematic terrains were reproduced physically on the layout of WSF venue (the World Social Territory). During the event the participants could more easily identify several themes among the alternatives that were being constructed.
Towards the WSF 2007
WSF 2007 - Emphasizing the Actions
The Consultation Step by Step
Reproduction in paper and other ways
Deadline: August 30th
The Consultation Questions
 
  
WSF 2007 - Emphasizing the Actions
 
The new consultation repeats past accomplishments and does more. It describes and focuses the actions, campaigns and struggles that each organization is engaged in. In 2007, the WSF will be gathering in Africa, a continent that condenses the contradictions, injustices and violence of global capitalism. Our aim is to make even more visible the concrete initiatives that challenge and work to end this oppression, keeping hope in a dignified world.

Your participation is vital for this process. This year the preparatory consultation asks organizations to do two things: a) name the main actions, campaigns and struggles that they are involved in; b) describe each one of these main actions, campaigns and struggles by answering seven easy questions, which are at the end of the message. This will take only 5 minutes to do.



  
The Consultation Step by Step
 
The consultation questionnaire must be filled in through the internet, but we also strongly encourage filling out the printed questionnaire for all those participants who do not have access to computers. The site where you can find the preparatory consultation is: http://consultation.wsf2007.org .

Before filling out the questionnaire, each organization must, of course, identify itself. Those organizations who have already registered  in any of the WSF2006 activity (Polycentric) will already have their information automatically entered, and do not have to re-enter it. Just enter your organization’s login and password, or if you have forgotten this information,  you can request it be emailed to you through this web page.

For those organizations who did not register in any of 2006 activities this process is also easy and fast. There are three steps to follow: 1) Register as an individual; 2) Register your organization; 3) Enter the questionnaire specific web page and click on the “add new” key.

On this same page, there is something extremely hopeful: the consultation interactivity. Any participant has access to information concerning actions, campaigns and struggles already registered for all organizations engaged in the process. You can also have with an easy click the address of all primary contact persons. A searching system, not yet totally developed, will allow you to refine searching. It is possible to find, for example, actions linked to business, or organizations whose name has the word women in its title. In the future, more advanced systems will locate initiatives, projects or events initiated by WSF participants in any part of the world or at any time. At that time, the WSF will have left behind the condition of event for that one of process.
 
Reproduction in paper and other ways
 
Unfortunately, most people throughout the world do not have access to the internet. Among those without access to the internet, are many organizations linked to the development of a new world. Therefore we want to encourage participation in the consultation process and disseminate the resulting information in a paper form and in an audio broadcasting form via radio. Networks that have among their participants entities without access to computers can, for example, print the consultation in their internal newsletter and encourage those associated organizations to answer the questions. A similar method was successfully adopted in 2005.

This requires some additional work. Those who diffused the preparatory consultation must gather the answers and input them in the system. Thanks to the efforts of networks and others, the actions, campaigns and struggles developed by those without access to the internet will be known as well.
 
Deadline: August 30th
 
As much effort as possible has to be made in order to get as much information as possible for the consultation process by August 30th. The process of reviewing and organizing the information gathered begins right after the August 30th deadline (between September 2nd and 5th) in a variety of essential  meetings held in Nairobi to define the program of WSF2007. The Organizing Committee, the African Social Forum Council, the Methodology and Content commissions of the WSF International Council among several other volunteer organizations will be part of those meetings. From the analyses of the consultation results, the WSF’s 2007 Thematic Terrains will be defined. The system will continue online, as a tool for dialogue. However, the new answers that emerge after that deadline will not influence the architecture of the WSF meeting 2007 in Nairobi.

A few days after this meeting, about the end of September, WSF2007 registration will begin. We are looking forward to meeting you in Nairobi, between January 20th and 25th, to develop together new proposals and transformative actions. In the meanwhile, please participate in the consultation, answer it as soon as possible and spread it as much as you can.

Our best regards,


Methodology and Contents Commissions
WSF International Council
  
The Consultation Questions
 
Here are the eight very easy preparatory consultation questions that we request you answer, to describe each action, campaign or struggle.

a) Name/title of this action, campaign or struggle:

b) Range of this action, campaign or struggle:
(  ) Local (  ) National (  ) Regional  (  ) World

c) Area / issue (s) that identify this of this action, campaign or struggle

d) Aim(s) of the action, campaign or struggle

e) Year in which it has started

f) Is this action, campaign or struggle a result of some activity carried out in some Forum?
( ) Yes (  ) No                    If so, in which Forum?

g) Is it possible to speak about effects from this action, campaign or struggle? If so, please specify them briefly:

h) Does your organisation intend, through your activities during WSF in Nairobi 2007, to link up with other organisations/networks/entities about this action, campaign or struggle?
(  ) Yes   (  ) No   
If yes: in what form do you want to proceed to link with other organisations?
 
 
  WSF 2007 Organizing Committee executive office - Kenya
Physical Contacts: Masandukuni Lane, Off Gitanga Road
Postal Address: P.O. Box 63125, 00619 Nairobi Kenya
Telephone: 254-020-3860745 ou 254-020-3860746
Fax: 254-020-2713262
E-mail: socialforum@sodnet.or.ke 

World Social Forum Office in São Paulo
Address: rua General Jardim, 660 - 7th floor - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
Postal code: 01223-010
Website: www.worldsocialforum.org

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