Local Initiatives for a Human Right to Water
Equitable access to sufficient, safe, affordable
water (human right to water) is a key problem facing our
communities, whether the water services are public or
private. This workshop hopes to address the gap in the
existing legal framework - neither Canada nor the US
recognize the international obligation of the human
right to water. Should communities establish local laws
that will implement minimum rates for the "40-60 liters
/ day / person" right to water, a ban on water shutoffs,
democratic participatory decision making for water rates
(affordability), quality (safe water) within their
utility? What might be effective strategies for a local
initiative?
Global Water Struggles
Communities Resist Worldwide against Corporate Water
Grab
Hear about worldwide resistance to water
privatization; from Cochabamba, Bolivia to Nicaragua, to
India and beyond citizens are successfully fighting
multi-national control of their water.
Can't Live Without It So the Fight is On!
How grassroots social
movements are claiming their right to land and water.
Water and Land are resources that we all can't live
without, but access to safe water and land to grow food
is becoming increasingly unequal in our world today. In
this interactive workshop, participants will look at the
impact of global trade and neo-liberal policies on
communities around the world and at examples of
grassroots social movements in Haiti, the U.S., Brazil
and Mexico organizing to regain control over these vital
resources.
Water and Trade
How do trade agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO
agreements like GATS and other international trade
agreements threaten the ability of communities to
protect their water resources? How do they promote
privatization of water/sewer services? What does it mean
when the World Trade Organizations says that local
regulations cannot be “more burdensome then necessary”?
Myths of Privatization
What are the myths that corporations use to control
the dialogue around privatization? Learn the tools for
understanding these myths and effectively counter them
with your own organizing.
Taking on the Soft-drink Giants
Learn about the International Coke Boycott and the
ongoing work against both Pepsi and Nestle that is
underway and how it connects directly to the issue of
control of water as well as labor rights worldwide.
Pumping for Profit
Bottled and Bulk Water
A massive international marketing campaign by the big
four beverage corporations to turn water into a designer
food item is threatening the water supplies for
communities’ world-wide and undermining public
confidence in municipal water systems. Find out what
happens when a bottled water company comes to town and
what you can do about it.
Municipal Water Systems
Public Ownership,
Private Ownership, and the Challenge of Public Private
Partnerships.
What happens when a privately owned municipal water
system is put up for sale? Who controls the town’s
water? What happens when a water management corporation
proposes to manage the municipal system for a fee? What
can communities do to keep their water supply locally
owned and operated? What does having a public private
partnership mean when it come to water? Find out from
our presenters who have been there already. How do you
work politically in a municipality to educate the public
and the politicians in advance of privatization and give
them a tool kit of state regulation’s and other things
to use to challenge the thing when it rears its ugly
head in local communities.
Faith Communities and Water Roundtable
Water has been symbolic of life, blessings, spiritual
cleansing in the writings and ceremonies of many faith
communities throughout the world. Find out how some
Faith communities are participating in a dialogue about
protecting water. We will share stories about actions
and programs in our faith communities in a roundtable
format with help from several resource people who will
serve as facilitators. We will inspire each other as
seek collaborations.
Public Trust Doctrine
Does your state law say that the groundwater and
surface waters of our state are held in the public
trust. What does this mean for your community? How are
these laws applied? What rules and legal principles
govern them?
Preserving and Promoting the Strengths of Public
Systems
Eighty-six percent of Americans get their water from publicly owned
and operated utilities and have for many years - so we
we must be doing something right. Yet, public funds for
water infrastructure are less available than they once
were, leaving more and more communities open to offers
of privatization. In this workshop we will identify the
old and new ways that citizens and water workers from
Brazil to Washington, DC are ensuring universal access
to clean and affordable water through public systems,
including community control of public utilities, new
strategies for accountability, sources for public
financing, and strategies for more equity. Find out what
you can do in your community to prevent privatization
with positive alternatives for efficiently financing and
managing water in the public interest.
New Paradigm Organizing: Communities Just Say NO to
Corporations
Frustrated with regulations that let corporations
pollute your community and planet? Some communities are
taking a new approach to stop corporate predation and
pollution in its tracks. Learn how communities in PA and
NH are just saying NO.
Sneak Previews:
Water Warriors and
Water First!
Water First (Amy Hart) is an ongoing documentary film
project about global water issues. The section shown at
this event is set in Johannesburg South Africa where
residents are protesting against the installation of
pre-paid water meters. Many of the residents cannot
afford to pay for water, much less to pay ahead. When
they cannot pay, their water is shut off. Many residents
claim their water was cut off despite the fact that they
owe nothing. While the government official from the
South African Department of Water And Forestry insists
that the water is never cut off, since it goes against
the constitutional rights of the people, we go into
homes where the water has been shut off for over 3
months. In the streets, police threaten to shoot at the
chanting crowd – but they stand strong and are willing
to die for the sake of clean water.
Water Warriors (Liz Miler) Water is quickly becoming
the liquid gold of the 21st century. While corporations
urge local governments to privatize municipal water,
communities around the world are organizing to ensure
affordable access to this life sustaining resource.
Water Warriors, is the story of one community's
determination to fight the seemingly inevitable path of
privatization. The film will capture up close the
passionate and determined players in this dramatic
conflict: seasoned community organizers, local workers,
corporate managers pleading for efficiency; and local
government officials, torn between state directives and
citizens needs.
Highland Park, U.S.A. was once the center of a
thriving car industry and the birthplace of Henry Ford's
assembly line. Today the city is on the verge of
financial and physical collapse and as a result is under
a state take over. A team of corporate emergency
managers have been appointed to get the city out of its
financial crisis and to do this they have raised water
rates, attached unpaid bills to property taxes, and are
looking to privatize the community's remaining valuable
resource - the water plant.
These measures have resulted in an unprecedented
number of water shut offs and residents are at risk of
losing their homes and their voice in what happens to
this public resource. For the residents of Highland Park
the threat of water privatization is simply the last
straw, and an impetus to fight back.
Water Warriors presents a community in crisis but
also the powerful enactment of participatory democracy
by workers, citizens, and city council representatives
invested in local solutions. This community portrait is
an unnerving indication of what's in store for small
towns throughout the United States.
Presenters Biographies
Arnie Alpert,
New Hampshire Program Coordinator for the American
Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization
dedicated to social justice and peace. He has closely
followed the impact of globalization and “free trade”
agreements on labor and water since the mid-1990s, and
has spoken and written extensively on the topics. He is
a member of UNITE-HERE, and is also active in the NH
Water Table, a statewide network which brings together
grassroots activists fighting commodification of water.
Saulo Araujo
Global Program Assistant, Grassroots International
has dedicated himself to working for the resource rights
of rural and urban communities in Brazil, Mexico and the
U.S. In his native country of Brazil, Saulo worked with
rural communities in the arid northeast region to
develop sustainable water sources and protect local
genetic materials. He also worked with water management
programs in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. In New
England, he has worked with environmental justice groups
in inner city neighborhoods, supporting the work of
residents to protect open and green spaces, food
security and environmental health. Currently, Saulo is a
member of the first class of the Environmental
Leadership Program/Greater Boston Regional Network and a
member of the grant-making committee of the New England
Grassroots Environmental Fund (NEGEF). Saulo has a
Master’s Degree in International Development and Social
Change from Clark University.
Ruth Caplan
is National Campaign Coordinator for the Alliance for
Democracy's Defending Water for Life Campaign which is
organizing in the Northeast and on the West Coast to
stop commodification and privatization of water and
water services. In 2003, she helped organize the Water
Allies Network, a diverse national network of people and
groups who believe "secure and equitable access to clean
water is a human right and must be protected for all
generations and all living things." She is part of the
global Our World Is Not For Sale network opposing the
WTO and has written "Trading Away Our Water." Caplan
also chairs the national Sierra Club's Water
Privatization Task Force. Her history of activism
includes helping to stop three nuclear plants on Lake
Ontario and serving as Executive Director of
Environmental Action which supported grassroots
campaigns and named the Dirty Dozen members of the U.S.
Congress. In 2004, she received the national Sierra
Club's Special Service Award for her work on corporate
accountability, international trade, water
privatization, and energy policy.
Tony Clarke
is the founder and executive director of the Polaris
Institute, which assists civil society organizations,
both in Canada and internationally, to develop new
capacities and tools for democratic social change in an
age of corporate globalization. One of the main projects
at the Institute has to do with water issues such as the
privatization of water services, bottled water and bulk
water exports. Through this project, Polaris works with
citizens’ groups, public service workers and social
movements who are engaged in frontline struggles on
these water issues in Canada, the United States, South
Africa and India. Internationally, Tony has been a
keynote and panel speaker at conferences on water issues
in Europe, Africa and Asia. He is the co-author [with
Maude Barlow] of Blue Gold: The Corporate Theft of the
World’s Water [2002], which has been published in 40
countries.
Art Cohen was
trained in public health as well as law, he has been
working in public and environmental health for over 30
years. During the first half of the 1980's, he managed a
county's public water and sewerage company in Southern
Maryland. The company was responsible for providing
potable water to and collecting and treating sewage from
35,000 households. More recently, he directed a local
public health department in Southeastern Connecticut. He
currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland and devotes much
of his time to opposing water privatization, and working
with many others on ways to improve public water supply
and sanitation systems for low income persons living in
the world's larger cities.
Janet Eaton,
PhD, is both an activist and part time academic who has
lectured at several Nova Scotia universities, where she
has taught courses on 'Critical Perspectives on
Globalization', Community Political Power' and
'Environment & Sustainable Society'. Janet presently
serves as the Sierra Club of Canada's International
Liaison to the Sierra Club's Corporate Accountability
Committee and Water Privatization Task Force. She has
worked with communities in Nova Scotia to oppose and
stop a bottled water plant, and mega-quarry among
others. She also works internationally and nationally on
issues associated with corporate globalization, water
privatization, militarism, the Security and Prosperity
Partnership for North America (SPP) and more recently
has been researching and speaking out against Atlantica
and the emerging North American cross border trade
regions.
Mike Esposito
is president of the Utility Workers Union of America
Local 423, representing about 250 workers in new Jersey.
The local is currently challenging rate increases
proposed by New Jersey American Water, a subsidiary of
Germany's RWE. After graduating high school and working
in private construction for a few years, Mike began
working at Elizabethtown Water Co. in January 1990. That
April, he was sworn into the Utility Workers Union of
American, and in June was appointed department steward.
He has served a variety of roles in the union since,
including safety rep, trustee, and negotiation
committee. In 1998 he became the Vice President of the
Local, and in February 2006 was elected President.
Throughout his career with the water company, Mike has
worked in almost every department, in positions such as
maintenance mechanic, treatment operator, station
operator, meter set, utility man, sub-foreman, and field
service rep. He held a T-1 license for treatment and
distribution systems, and is an OSHA certified trainer.
Karl Flecker
is the Director of the Polaris Institute’s water
program which includes managing campaigns like Inside
the Bottle, a project dedicated to working with
community coalitions to challenge the bottled water
industry in North America. He has 20 + years experience
in community and international development work with a
strong focus on equity issues & labour issues. Karl has
done research & campaign work for the Council Canadians
-- Bovine Growth Hormone file, Canadian Labour Congress,
& the David Suzuki Foundation.
Armando Flores
has a law degree from the University of El Salvador; in
1991 he becomes co-founder of the Committee for the
Defense of the Consumer - CDC; in 1989 and 1990, he is
the coordinator of the education program for the
Federation of Consumer Cooperatives of El Salvador;
between 1991 and 1995 he is Vice Director of CDC; in
1996 he is the Coordinator for the Consumers
International for the Central American and the Caribbean
region and has been the CDC Director since 1997.
Amy Hart is a
New York-based filmmaker. Currently she works on a
production of a feature length film on water issues in
Africa. In addition to indie filmmaking, she also
produces three national TV series on public health
issues for the University at Albany. Amy Hart worked at
Miramax Films, Fine Line Features and New Line Cinema
before starting her own film company, Hart Productions.
Susan Howatt
is the national water campaigner with the Council of
Canadians, the largest citizen watchdog group in Canada.
Before joining the Council, she was the international
campaigner with the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), a
network that works with communities impacted by the
mining industry in Indonesia. Susan was the cofounder of
Unofficial Opposition, an umbrella group that advocated
for social services in British Columbia. She has worked
extensively in media and communications for
anti-poverty, environmental and human rights groups in
Vancouver and served as a human rights observer in
Chiapas, Mexico.
Patricia Jones
works as the Environmental Justice program
manager at UUSC, More information available at:
www.uusc.org/
 Frances Moore Lappé is the author or coauthor of fifteen books. Her 1971 three-million-copy bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet, continues to awaken readers to the human-made causes of hunger and the power of our everyday choices to create the world we want. [read on]
Jonathan Leavitt
has served as a Field Manager for Clean
Water Action, founded the Lawrence Grassroots
Initiative, and served as its Executive Director for
seven years, founded the Massachusetts Green Party in
1996 and served as its first staff person and then
initiated and ran the Jill Stein for Governor campaign
before leaving to run for State Representative as the
Green Party's first ever Clean Elections candidate.
After the campaign Jonathan founded the Massachusetts
Anti-Corporate Clearinghouse, and in October of 2003 was
brought in to coordinate the development and staffing
for the Boston Social Forum. He is a founder of
Massachusetts Global Action and is currently consulting
for the “Our Communities, Our Water” project.
Bill McCann
is a member of the Board of Directors of SOG. He is also
Chair of SOG's Legislative and Governmental Issues
Committee. He is a former six term State Legislator,
serving two terms as Assistant Democratic Whip, and a
retired SEIU Field Representative/Organizer. He was
Chair of the School Board for six years [1974-1980] and
also served two terms as Vice Chair. He has been
responsible for drafting SOG's Pro Se Appeals to NH DES,
the NH Water Council and the NH Wetlands Council.
Jake Miller,
Communications Coordinator at Grassroots International,
recently returned from a program visit to the northeast
of Brazil, where he met with social movements and social
change organizations workings on sustainable irrigation
and agriculture projects and saw the social and
ecological consequences of large-scale dams for
irrigating agro-industrial plantations and
hydro-electric power. Jake has been a student of Brazil
for nearly 20 years and has lived in Salvador, Bahia and
Rio de Janeiro. In addition to his work at Grassroots,
Jake is a free-lance writer and photographer who has
written and published his photographs in a variety of
publications including the New York Times, Peacework,
and Science. He writes about politics, culture and
science. He has published more than 40 children's books
on topics like the biology of spiders and lizards and
the history of the U.S. civil rights movement. An avid
birder, Jake is particularly interested in the ways that
agro-ecology can benefit both human and natural worlds.
Liz Miller, Producer, Director, Videographer, Co-Editor - Liz Miller is an educator, community media artist, and director of social issue documentary films and new media. Her last documentary, Novela, Novela, has been integrated into high school curricula and used by international coalitions working against violence and defending the rights of women, children and glbt populations (http://www.redlizardmedia.com/novela/ or http://www.puntos.org.ni).
Water Warriors is an hour long documentary on the battle for public water in Highland Park, Michigan is due for release in 2007. Miller teaches video production at Concordia University in Montreal. She is also a faculty advisor of "Cinema Politica," an international student network organizing a political film series across Canada, Mexico, France and the United
States.
Nancy Munger is a drummaker and boatbuilder living on
Cape Cod (MA). She is a member of the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom, working on
local water issues as well as being on the National
Leadership team of WILPF's "Save the Water" campaign.
Suren Moodliar
is a coordinator of the North American Alliance
for Fair Employment (NAFFE). His organizing experiences
range from the liberation struggle in South Africa and
the divestment movement in the US, to campus and union
organizing as well as managing international NGO
networks and impacting international treaties. His
formal education is in political science and regional
planning with degrees from Indiana University and the
University of California, Los Angeles. Suren played a
major role in organizing the Boston Social
Forum--coordinating the program for the entire event,
among many other things. He is a founder of
Massachusetts Global Action.
Ward Morehouse
of Northampton, is a co-founder of Shays2: Western
Mass Committee on Corporations and Democracy as well as
a co-founder of the Holyoke Citizens for Open
Government, which has been challenging the privatization
of that city's wastewater treatment system by a
multi-national corporation for 2 ½ years. He was a
co-founder in 1994 of POCLAD (Program on Corporations,
Law and Democracy). Many of his essays are included in
the standard introductory book for POCLAD work, Defying
Corporations, Defining Democracy. Morehouse is
internationally known for his work struggling against
the corporate assault on human rights and a co-founder
of the International Coalition for Justice in Bhopal,
India, working on behalf of the victims of the 1984
Union Carbide Corporation's chemical spill in that city.
Morehouse has written or edited some 20 books, including
Building Sustainable Communities, Abuse of Power: The
Social Performance of Multinational Corporations, and
The Underbelly of the U.S. Economy
Timothy Newman
graduated in May 2006 from Clark University in
Worcester, Mass., where he majored in Sociology and
International Development. At Clark, he helped found the
Clark chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign, and
helped launch the CAN Coke campaign, which is working to
get Coke products off Clark's campus. He has done
internships with Food & Water Watch, Africa Action and
the National Society for Human Rights in Namibia.
Nancy Price is Co-Chair of the Alliance for Democracy and Western
Coordinator of the Defending Water for Life Campaign.
She is on the Leadership Team for the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom's Save the
Water Campaign. She is also President of the California
Center for Community Democracy and Board members of
Friends of the River (CA).
Jessica Roach
is a Senior Organizer with the Water for All
Campaign at Food & Water Watch. Prior to joining Food &
Water Watch, Jessica worked as a Legislative Assistant
for Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), where she specialized in
trade and economic policy. Jessica has also campaigned
with Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, working to
halt WTO meetings in Seattle in 1999. She holds an MA in
International Studies from the American University, and
a BA in Political Science from the University of
Washington.
Ray Rogers,
president and director of New York City-based Corporate
Campaign, Inc. (CCI), has been described as labor's most
innovative strategist and "one of the most successful
union organizers since the CIO sit-down strikes of the
1930s." For 25 years, Corporate Campaign has championed
union and community solidarity and membership and family
involvement in campaigns for social and economic
justice. Rogers and his organization have been featured
many times in major publications such as Time, Business
Week, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The New
York Times, Newsday, USA Today and The Washington Post,
as well as many television programs. In 2006, Business
Week described Rogers as “a legendary union activist.”
Many of Rogers' accomplishments are cited in Marquis
Who's Who in America.
Becky Smith
is the Massachusetts Drinking Water Coordinator for
Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund in Boston. Ms.
Smith has been working with CWA since 2001 in Texas,
South Dakota, and New England. Her current projects
include working with local community groups to identify
existing and potential threats to drinking water
sources, and to equip group members with policy tools
and organizing tactics to combat such threats. Becky
also does organizing, media, and policy work on the
Boston Lead Free Drinking Water campaign, as well as
coordinating CWA's statewide Massachusetts Campaign to
Protect Drinking Water. She can be reached at: bsmith [
a t ] cleanwater.org
Claudia Torrelli lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay. She is an environmental and social activist and is on the staff of Global Labor Strategies and Redes (Friends of the Earth, Uruguay) which played a key role in the historic 2004 Uruguayan constitutional referendum campaign which banned water privatization and made water a fundamental human right under the Uruguayan constitution. She is also an activist in the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a network of civil society and labor organizations in Latin America, and a part of the Netherlands based Transnational Institute's Alternative Regionalism Program.. She holds a degree in International Relations from the University of Montevideo.
Olivia Zink
is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire with a
degree in Political Science and a minor in Sustainable
Living, and a graduate of Southern New Hampshire
University with a master's degree in Community Economic
Development. For the last five years she has volunteered
with a grassroots community group called Save Our
Groundwater (SOG), serving as a member of the Board of
Directors and the NH Water Table. SOG have built and
mobilized coalitions of individuals, organizations, and
state and local officials who are interested in keeping
water in the public trust. Olivia is currently working
for Star Island, a non-profit in Portsmouth NH.
|
