04.09.2009 The World Social Forum's 10-year anniversary celebrations will start in Porto Alegre
The World Social Forum's 10-year anniversary celebrations will start in the city where everything began: Porto Alegre. The capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul along with its metropolitan area are going to hold the Greater Porto Alegre 10 years Social Forum, from January the 25th until the 29th 2010. But this will only be the first of several events already scheduled for next year, as the 2010 WSF will have a decentralized and permanent format, with events to be held across the world sharing the global crisis as a common theme.
Among the already programmed activities for the Greater Porto Alegre event, there will be a 10 years World Social Forum Seminar, organized by the Support Group to the World Social Forum. This event will gather guests from several parts of the world in debates on evaluations and perspectives of the WSF process. Aimed at social networks and movements' leaderships, delegates of the forums' organizing committees and intellectuals which identify themselves with the space, this activity intends to contribute to the definition of the course to be taken by the process. It is going to be a space of reflection, not only on the past experiences of the WSF, but mainly on its future.
Since its birth in 2001, in opposition to the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, Switzerland, the World Social Forum was constituted as an important initiative of mobilization and articulation of the global civil society. From then on it has maintained a central role against “single thought”, keeping dialog with the incipient anti-globalization movement and offering a rich space for sharing experiences, drawing up campaigns and for debates on alternatives to social problems at global level.
Through these 10 years, the WSF stopped being an event and became a global process. Apart from the world meetings, which since 2004 (Mumbai, India) reached other countries and continents, there are several local, national and thematic events that are today part of the process. As first event of the celebration of its first decade, the Greater Porto Alegre 10 years Social Forum will fulfill an important role of stimulating and boosting the 2010 WSF across the world.
The event is being organized by civil society organizations of Rio Grande do Sul, with support of local governments of the seven cities hosting activities (Porto Alegre, Canoas, Sapucaia do Sul, São Leopoldo, Novo Hamburgo, Campo Bom and Sapirange).
updated on 09/02/2010
