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2012 Partners and Projects Guide

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Grassroots International works to create a just and sustainable world by building alliances with progressive movements. We provide grants to our Global South

partners and join them in advocating for social change. Our primary focus is on land, water and food as human rights and nourishing the political struggle

necessary to achieve these rights. Land. Water. Food. Rights to these precious resources hold promise to ensure a more just and sustainable world. Across the globe, indigenous and peasant leaders proclaim the concept of “el buen vivir” – or living well in harmony with nature – which emphasizes solutions based on traditional knowledge and shared resources. The holistic approach places food sovereignty, climate justice, and resource rights above the consumptive impulses that dominate and increasingly threaten so much of our planet.

Through funding grassroots activism internationally to advance the human right to land, water and food – and through strategic advocacy domestically to impact policies and educate communities – Grassroots International and our partners are building a movement toward el buen vivir.

In contrast, unfair, corporate-driven global trade and climate policies and the stark conditions imposed by international financial institutions exacerbate the world’s already unequal distribution of land, water, and food. Harmful policies governing agriculture, trade, and energy devastate rural economies and ecologies and have contributed to the international food and climate crises.

Growing social movements around the world are mobilizing to resist these destructive policies. Grassroots International works closely with peasant farmers, landless workers, indigenous peoples and women around the world to address the root causes of hunger and injustice, and to build a more just and sustainable world.

A Word about Partnerships

Social change is a long term process. That’s why Grassroots International follows a partnership-based approach to grantmaking. We fund groups for several years in order to develop deep and meaningful relationships and to expand their organizational capacity. Partnership enables the grassroots organizations we support to make informed plans and develop the infrastructure needed to ensure their effectiveness in the social movements in which they participate and lead.

Grassroots International links dynamic groups and networks that are at the core of our grantmaking and advocacy program with the thousands of financial supporters who share a passion for justice and human rights.

Our partnerships are primarily with peasant and indigenous movements committed to creating structural change at the local, national and international levels, using both organizing and community-building strategies including sustainable livelihoods. The voices and policy perspectives of our partners inform and guide our work. Through Global Learning Exchanges, Grassroots strives to help our Global South partners

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build stronger relationships with one another as well as to pursue alliances in the Global North to influence U.S. policies and those of international institutions such as the World Bank.

Grassroots International works with global partners like the Via Campesina, an international network of farmers, fishers and other small producers from 70 countries. We also work in collaboration with U.S.-based groups like the National Family Farm Coalition to conduct ongoing public education and advocacy work in the United States informed by our on-the-ground global partnerships and grantmaking.

Grassroots International and our colleagues at the National Family Farm Coalition developed the popular “Food Sovereignty” booklet which features nine personal testimonials from farmers, fishers and producers in the U.S., Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. The booklet is available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

RESOURCE RIGHTS FOR ALL GRANTMAKING Grassroots International supports key international organizations and movements that work predominantly in rural areas and use a resource rights and food sovereignty analysis to guide their organizing campaigns and community-led sustainable development. Grassroots provides grants in three interrelated categories:

• Movement Building: To support activities, including leadership development, learning exchanges, capacity building, and technical cooperation, that provide opportunities for our partners and their allies (in both the South and North) to learn from each other and strengthen the resource rights and food sovereignty movements.

• Sustainable Livelihoods: To increase the capacity of our partners in the Global South to implement and manage projects that exemplify agroecological practices and alternative development models, and serve as an entry point for organizing.

• Human Rights Defense: To help partner organizations monitor and document human rights abuses and defend human rights, including economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights, especially the rights to food, water, and land.

Following is a brief overview of programs and partners in Brazil, Mesoamerica, Haiti, the Middle East, and in other parts of the world, including Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Brazilian Resource Rights Partners and Projects

The violations of civil and political rights that we see are the end of a process that begins

with the systematic violation of economic and social rights. Anton Fon, Co-Director, Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, Brazil

Brazil’s official approach to development has emphasized models that leave a majority of citizens out of the picture. This has only exacerbated the enormous inequalities that afflict Brazilian society, where a mere 1.6 percent of Brazilian landholders control 47 percent of the nation's privately owned land, and 60 percent of the population shares just 15 percent of all wealth. Foreign companies’ control over local resources has increased as Brazil continues down its neo-liberal economic path. Coupled with the destructive practices of industrial agriculture, land grabbing by international agribusinesses threatens Brazil’s vast forest, land, water and biodiversity. Yet indigenous peoples, rural landless workers and urban slum dwellers are at the forefront of a movement striving to counter these trends and build an economy that serves all citizens. Since 1998, Grassroots

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International’s Brazil Program has focused on two key issues: the rights to land and water, and defending social movements that are being criminalized. Geographically, the program focuses primarily on the northeast and central plateau region (in the states of Maranhão, Pernambuco, Bahia and Goiás).

Grassroots is currently providing support to the following organizations in BRAZIL:

The Landless Workers Movement (MST), Latin America's largest popular movement, has been at the forefront of social action for comprehensive agrarian reform and food sovereignty. The MST works with landless peasants to identify and settle on underutilized land, gain legal title to the land and bring it into productive use. Through the MST's efforts, more than 370,000 families have been settled on 17 million acres of land and currently another 89,840 families are living in encampments, awaiting settlement. The MST is also one of the most powerful peasant and landless workers movements and plays a vital leadership role within the Via Campesina.

Projects for 2012: • MST - National Agroecology Training Project: Across the 23 states where its settlements are

located, the MST promotes agroecological farming methods. MST’s agroecological model prioritizes the use of local seed varieties, diversification of crops, recovering and building local knowledge, and fostering local food sovereignty. The Training Project offers a wide array of support and learning opportunities for its members as well as for representatives of other Latin American peasant movements that are also members of the Via Campesina. The MST also supports the development of the Latin American School of Agroecology. For the MST, the ultimate goal of this exchange process in agroecology is to promote food sovereignty and social justice.

• MST Maranhão – Base Organizing and Leadership Development: This project provides leadership training for 180 organizers and leaders in camps and settlements in the state of Maranhão. Grassroots has been funding the leadership training program since 2006. In the past year, the number of families in camps awaiting settlement in Maranhão state has increased dramatically, in part because of the success of the MST’s efforts. Consequently, the need for training and educational development of an entire new cadre of camp leaders has also increased.

• MST Maranhão - Agroecology Project: Tragically, local knowledge of sustainable farming practices in many communities has been either lost or suppressed under the onslaught of industrial agriculture, often to the detriment of local ecologies. This project aims to restore and revive those lost practices. Local families are joining hands with trained MST technicians to create an agroecological demonstration unit that will serve as a training ground for settlement residents, and which can be replicated in other settlements. The Agroecology Project shows farmers that more crops can be produced at lower costs using sustainable methods than through applications of chemicals and fertilizers required (at great cost to the farmer and the land) by industrial agriculture.

• MST Pernambuco - Human Rights Training and Defense: Grassroots has supported various aspects of human rights monitoring, training and legal defense in Pernambuco over the last several

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years. Extreme disparities of wealth and land concentration have led to violence and human rights abuses by large landowners, particularly against land reform activists. Through this project, MST offers trainings for land activists about legal procedures and documentation of human rights abuses as well as legal assistance in cases against its members.

The Popular Peasant Movement (MCP) is a grassroots organization in the state of Goiás that advocates for the protection of the peasant economy and food sovereignty. MCP engages peasant families through organizing and through implementation of sustainable agriculture practices that are environmentally friendly and economically viable. MCP has been a leading voice in Goiás against the expansion of large-scale industrial plantations for the production of agrofuels and the dissemination of genetically modified seeds. Recently the MCP has begun to expand to other states in Brazil. Project for 2012:

• Creole Seeds Program: The MCP is expanding its successful initiative that encourages the production, growth and distribution of local seeds. Through farmer-to-farmer education that starts with the multiplication of creole seeds, the MCP has been able to mobilize thousands of small farmers to protect varieties of local seeds of corn, rice, beans and legumes, largely through organic growing methods. The Creole Seeds Program preserves local genetic materials and markets organic heirloom (or Creole) seeds, thus contributing to the sustainability of the livelihoods of thousands of small-scale farmers.

The Association in the Settlement Areas of the State of Maranhão (ASSEMA) supports rural families struggling to remain on and make a living from land gained through land reform. An association of rural workers, it provides technical support to settler and Afro-Brazilian Quilombola families, helping them implement small-scale family agriculture and production. ASSEMA also organizes these communities to advocate for a more equitable distribution of resources to address the structural inequities that have kept the poor in Maranhão hungry for generations.

Project for 2012: • Support to the Family Peasant Economy in Babaçu Areas and Sustainable Management of

Natural Resources: Through this project, ASSEMA will provide leadership development training for women babaçu nut (native coconut) breakers, and enable them to strengthen local and regional land rights coalitions and production cooperatives. In addition, ASSEMA supports the widespread use of organic farming practices that include the intercropping of babaçu trees with grains and fruit bearing plants. These initiatives will be complemented by fruit processing strategies that enhance the economic value of local crops and achieve some of ASSEMA’s key objectives: increasing the productivity of subsistence family agricultural practices, diversifying local diets and incomes, and developing a sustainable economic base for the region’s poor peasant families.

The Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB): Established in 1991 as an autonomous national popular movement, MAB represents hundreds of displaced families who have self-organized in areas impacted by the construction of large hydroelectric dams. The threat from increasing numbers of mega-dams has risen dramatically as the climate and energy crises have fuelled the growth of “clean and green” energy sources like hydro power. However, these projects, many of which receive carbon credits under international clean development mechanism arrangements, displace farming and indigenous communities, divert water from communities, and increase deforestation and methane emissions. MAB also advocates for the human right to water and land, particularly for people displaced by dams and other mega-projects. The group successfully stopped the privatization of rivers and other natural resources, and they advocate for alternative energy policies that are beneficial to both poor people and the environment.

Project for 2012: • Grassroots Organizing and Defense of Water and Land Rights. In the face of the construction of

new mega-dams, MAB is working with threatened communities to develop leadership skills among community members, provide educational gatherings and organize informational sessions. The goal

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is to help the communities being targeted by the mega-projects to better protect their rights, water, land, and livelihood. Through its educational program, MAB uses popular education methods and curriculum that includes classes on leadership development, alternative policies for energy production through mega-dams, communication and media strategies, and documentation of human rights violations.

Social Network for Justice and Human Rights (Rede Social): Through research, advocacy and action Rede Social works to guarantee the economic, social, cultural, civil and political human rights of Brazil’s politically and economically marginalized populations. Rede Social was created at the behest of dozens of non-governmental organizations and social movements in Brazil, including rural workers and indigenous movements, youth and Afro-Brazilian organizations. Rede Social is a leading voice in the agrofuels debate in Brazil and across Latin America, and has played a key role in exposing human rights violations against the rural workers and displaced rural families affected by this industry.

Project for 2012: • Human Rights Defense and Resistance to Agrofuels: Through this project, Rede Social links the

rights and legal defense work of local communities to national and international human rights organizations. Rede Social will research and monitor of the impacts of large-scale industrial agrofuel projects, as well as teach affected communities how to protect themselves from –and make public –human rights abuses. As necessary, the project will organize emergency missions to communities in conflict.

Mesoamerican Resource Rights Partners and Projects

When you sow maize, throw four seeds at a time: one for the wild animals, another for people with a taste for what's not theirs, another for festival days and another for the

family. Maize is not a business but food for survival, our sustenance and our happiness. When we plant it we bless it to ask for a good harvest for all. But we have recently found out that native maize varieties have been contaminated with transgenic seeds. This means that what our indigenous peoples took thousands of years to develop can be destroyed in

no time at all by companies that trade in life. Aldo González Rojas, Zapotec leader, Oaxaca

Campesinos (peasant farmers) and indigenous peoples constitute the two most significant social and economic justice movements in Mesoamerica today. These two parallel, sometimes intersecting movements are at the forefront of efforts to challenge the growing inequities caused by globalization in the region. Our Mesoamerica Program supports and strengthens both these movements.

Of the 60 million inhabitants of Mesoamerica, 40 percent (including the vast majority of indigenous peoples) engage in agriculture as a means of livelihood. Mesoamerica remains one of the most impoverished regions, with indigenous campesinos and especially women being the poorest of the poor. Yet the Mesoamerican

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region is rich in biodiversity, mineral and other natural resources. Transnational corporations seek profit from these resources, despite their location on indigenous ancestral land or territory.

The Mesoamerica Program supports cross-border work from Southern Mexico throughout Central America, particularly among indigenous and peasant organizations. All of our partners in the region work to defend the human rights to land, water and food, often by developing successful local, sustainable agricultural and development alternatives.

Mexico Grassroots is currently providing support to the following organizations in MEXICO:

The Center to Support the Popular Movement of Oaxaca (CAMPO) is building an important model for alternative integrated development in indigenous communities in the state of Oaxaca. CAMPO provides technical support and training to a variety of community-based projects that are helping indigenous family farmers move away from unsustainable practices, defend collective land tenure rights, organize indigenous communities and strengthen their skills.

Project for 2012: • Micro-regional Sustainable Development: CAMPO is helping 33 communities in the

Chinantla Alta and the Mazateca Alta regions in southern Mexico develop sustainable economic and agricultural strategies, improve infrastructure, and foster income-generating activities to alleviate inequities endemic to the region. In order to increase food production and improve local health, CAMPO is working with communities to set up projects such as fish farming, poultry production, reforestation, fruit tree nurseries, road construction, housing, potable water, alternative energy, and latrine construction.

The Oaxaca State Coffee Producers Network (CEPCO) works with largely indigenous coffee-growing families to fortify their economic wellbeing. CEPCO has been instrumental in strengthening organic coffee production among members and in diversifying the local economic base in an effort to ensure that local indigenous communities can stay on their traditional collectively owned land.

Project for 2012: • Women-led Organic Vegetable Gardens: Through a model farm established in 2000, CEPCO’s

skill-building training programs have educated women in the practices of organic agriculture, fish farming and animal husbandry. This strategy, targeted to both individual women and women’s organizations through training-of-trainers, fosters economic and food security. In 2012 CEPCO will support over 110 women in eight communities through technical assistance and trainings. In order to ensure the success of this program CEPCO staff will carry out training workshops on seed-saving and soil and water conservation. CEPCO will also accompany families through site visits in the communities where the gardens were established. The support to CEPCO in 2012 will go towards maintaining this program in the initial communities and expanding to new indigenous coffee-producing communities.

The Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO) is a Zapotec indigenous organization, established in 1990 by 26 regional and community-based indigenous campesino organizations in the Juarez Mountains. UNOSJO fosters locally controlled, environmentally and culturally appropriate development. The Zapotecs are one of the most numerous indigenous ethnicities in the region. UNOSJO works to promote and defend the rights of the indigenous communities of the Juarez Mountains. They have been the leading organization in the defense of resource rights for these communities – most notable is their work on protecting the forests from illegal logging, protecting watersheds and access to water, and defending collective indigenous land rights.

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UNOSJO has also been the leading indigenous voice in efforts to unmask the presence of genetically modified (GM) corn in the Oaxacan countryside, and undertook the research to detect the first traces of GM corn in Zapotec communities. UNOSJO is an active participant in the National Indigenous Congress, the Network in Defense of Corn, and in the Mexican Coalition in Defense of Water.

Project for 2012:

• Building Zapotec Territorial Autonomy: UNOSJO is working through community radio, community workshops and regional forums to stimulate a process of education, reflection and organizing in the Zapotec communities of the Juarez Mountains of Oaxaca. This educational program is designed to permit Zapotecs to assess the real threats posed by globalization to their control over the natural resources in their territories. This three-year project involves education and organizing to develop a Zapotec strategy to defend the territory and natural resources of the Sierra Juarez Mountains. UNOSJO is also working closely with our partners CAMPO and SER Mixe, respectively, on developing sustainable agroecological production methods and community statutes to defend communal property rights in Zapotec territories.

Mixe Peoples Services (SER Mixe) is an indigenous organization serving more than 130,000 people in 30 communities in the state of Oaxaca. As a non-governmental indigenous social organization, SER Mixe promotes collective land rights and supports the recognition of the Mixe people as an autonomous nation with the right to their own territory, culture and identity. SER Mixe currently runs the following programs: Legal Affairs, Culture and Education, and Sustainable Development. Professionals, social researchers and technical advisors support the organization's work. SER Mixe is active in the National Indigenous Congress and is connected to the international indigenous movement through participation in the Red de Información Indígena, or Indigenous Information Network.

Project for 2012: • The Land and Water Rights Defense Project defends indigenous territorial land and water

rights in various Mixe municipalities where long-standing land conflicts continue. This project contributes to rural and agrarian justice through training and conflict resolution skill-building as well as legal assistance. SER Mixe also provides training in the formulation of community statutes as instruments through which communal property rights may be defended and community norms established, contributing to the territorial reconstitution of the Mixe, Mixtec and Zapotec peoples. Through this project, Ser Mixe will document the legal situation of water rights and access in Mixe, Mixteca and Zapotec communities. Community control over land and water resources is critical for the existence of the indigenous peoples with whom this project works. The conflict resolution techniques developed and used by the Mixe peoples have been judged effective by Mixtec and Zapotec peoples of the northern and southern Oaxacan mountain regions, and these communities have requested that SER Mixe work with them toward resolution of agrarian land conflicts.

Enlace Civil: Founded in 1996 at the behest of autonomous indigenous communities in Chiapas state, Enlace Civil serves as a bridge between the indigenous movement in Chiapas and national and international civil society. Enlace Civil formed a multidisciplinary group of professionals in different fields, respectful of the decisions and criteria established by indigenous people. All of the projects that Enlace Civil promotes and implements respond to the expressed needs of each community as developed through the Juntas de Buen Gobierno (Good Government Committees). The organization does not offer projects to communities; rather, it takes community demands and serves as a bridge to those in Mexico and in the international community who wish to participate with them in the construction of better living conditions for indigenous people in the state.

Project for 2012: • Agroecology Training and Food Production: Grassroots’ project with Enlace Civil supports the

dissemination of agroecological practices in autonomous base communities in Chiapas through

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training and technical assistance. Once trained, the members of the municipal production commissions provide on-site field support to the production collectives of seven autonomous municipalities in the lower highlands region. This project will allow the autonomous indigenous communities to diversify and improve food production through the implementation of environmentally sound sustainable agriculture.

The National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA) is an autonomous, non-profit, and non-partisan national network of Mexican campesino and indigenous farming organizations. UNORCA represents a large and diverse constituency of communities in Mexico, including 1,400 regional member organizations and 200,000 producers in 27 Mexican states, UNORCA is also a member of the Via Campesina and plays a critical role in the climate justice movement in Mexico. Through education and organizing efforts, the organization mobilizes hundreds of communities to advocate for the rights of Mother Earth and local families. In coordination with other national networks, such as the National Assembly of Environmentally-Affected Communities UNORCA has built solidarity links between rural and urban communities to defend local solutions to the climate crisis. Project for 2012:

• Via Campesina Mexico Eco-Justice and Climate Change Education and Organizing: This project will support local efforts in Mexico to strengthen the alliance between farmers, indigenous and other rural and urban communities affected by climate change. UNORCA, as a key member of Via Campesina in Mexico, will advance the networking among rural groups who came together during the United Nations’ Conference of the Parties (international climate negotiations) held in Cancun, Mexico in November-December 2010. In addition, Via Campesina and local allies will promote education and organizing efforts to defend land and water rights of peasants and indigenous people in Mexico.

Guatemala

Grassroots is currently providing support to the following organization in GUATEMALA:

The National Coordination of Indigenous Peoples and Campesinos (CONIC) was established to promote sustainable and self-managed development, with emphasis on the rights and perspectives of the Maya Peoples. CONIC is building an organization at the national level by strengthening the voice and power of local communities and indigenous peoples. CONIC works in 16 departments located in the north, west and south of Guatemala. In these departments there are 375 communities with a total of 200,000 members.

CONIC’s general objectives are: • To support the implementation of the peace agreements and other international agreements, in

particular International Labor Organzization’s Agreement 169, as a means to promote rural development and the rights of indigenous peoples.

• To launch, in coordination with other organizations, a model of rural development and agrarian reform based on the recovery of land, and oriented by the Mayan world view and cosmovision.

• To promote citizen participation using the organizing power of indigenous communities. • To promote a gendered perspective in all of CONIC’s activities and proposals, at all levels.

Project for 2011: • Women-led Sustainable Livelihoods Project: Through this project, CONIC seeks to improve the

food security of peasant families and communities in the Sololá altiplano region of Guatemala. CONIC will provide organizational support and trainings for rural women about the optimal use of sustainable farming techniques and local resources – limited land and water,– to reduce the levels of childhood malnutrition. CONIC aims to carry out actions that, in the short term, allow families to

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respond to the worsening crisis of malnutrition while also laying the foundation for long term food sovereignty and rural development.

Nicaragua

Grassroots is currently providing support to the following organization in NICARAGUA:

The Association of Rural Workers (ATC) is the main member of the Via Campesina in Nicaragua. Founded in 1978, the ATC represents the interests of over 50,000 campesino and landless rural families, organized in cooperatives, small landholding associations and unions. The Via Campesina - Central America, with the ATC, has developed a Regional Training Center in Nicaragua offering intensive training to peasant and indigenous members from across Central America. The Francisco Morazán Training Center enables the Via Campesina - Central America to train and organize rural farmers from the region, both by bringing representatives to Nicaragua for intensive training and by deploying trainers to other countries. Training provides hands-on skills and tools need to fight for agrarian reform, fair trade, and seed and food sovereignty. Via Campesina - Central America’s regional coordinating body is formed by:

Nicaragua: The Association of Rural Workers (ATC), the National Coordination of Ex-Combatants (CNOR), and the Nicaraguan Association “Israel Galeano” (ARNIG);

Honduras: the National Center of Rural Workers (CNTC), the Honduran Association of Women Peasants (AHMUC) and the Council for the Integral Development of the Peasant Woman (CODIMCA);

Guatemala: The National Coordination of Peasant Organizations (CNOC), the National Coordination of Indigenous Peoples and Campesinos (CONIC), the Verapaz Union of Peasant Organization (UVOC), the National Coordination of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA) and the Peasant Unity Committee (CUC);

El Salvador: The National Council of Rural Workers (CNTC), the National Association of Agriculture Workers (ANTA), and the Federation of Agrarian Reform Cooperatives (FECORACEN).

Costa Rica: The National Forum of Peasant Organizations (MNC) and the National Union of Agriculture Producers of Costa Rica (UNAG).

In addition to representatives of these organizations, ATC coordinates training activities for other members and allies of Via Campesina, including the Association of Small Producers of Panama and the Belize Association of Producer Organizations.

Project for 2012: • Via Campesina - Central America Training and Leadership Development: Grassroots

supports training for leadership development and strategic work meetings of campesino, indigenous and Afro-descendent organizations at the Francisco Morazán Training Center. The training and strategy sessions tackle issues of agrarian reform and food sovereignty in the region and are a joint production of the Via Campesina - Central America and the Latin American Coordination of Campesino Organizations, the ATC and the MINGA Informativa of the Latin America Information Network.

Honduras

Grassroots is currently providing support to the following organizations in HONDURAS:

The National Center of Rural Workers (CNTC), a lead member organization of the Via Campesina, is the coordinating organization for the following project of Via Campesina - Central America.

Project for 2012:

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• Via Campesina Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform: Grassroots is currently funding the CNTC as the lead organization for the Via Campesina - Central America’s regional work on the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform (GCAR). Since 2007, the GCAR has implemented various activities and accomplished important milestones. Via Campesina-Central America will organize workshops and actions to raise awareness and strategic planning to effectively coordinate peasant-led actions to influence government decisions at national and regional levels. A strategic element of this project is the participation of women and youth in the design, decision-making, implementation and evaluation steps. In the current regional context, Via Campesina’s overarching goals are: to contribute to solving the hunger and poverty issues affecting the great majority of the population, as a consequence of the policies of a discriminatory system; and to strengthen the capacity and influence of indigenous and peasant organizations in the different realms of power, social movements and international organizations to improve the living conditions of peasant and indigenous communities.

Council for the Integral Development of the Peasant Woman (CODIMCA) is the lead organization for the Women’s Regional Commission of the Via Campesina – Central America.

Project for 2012: • Strengthening the Via Campesina's Women’s Commission in Central America: Through

this project, the women of the Via Campesina – Central America propose to strengthen the national level women's commissions in each of five countries in the region and thus strengthen the regional commission. The Central America Women's Commission organizes and accompanies national women's commissions in the Central American region to support the leadership of rural women in the defense of resource rights and food sovereignty. Women’s increased political participation will enhance the Via Campesina's work of challenging the neoliberal model and defending the principles of resource rights, women’s rights and gender equality. They will also play a lead role in the Via’s newly launched global campaign opposing violence against women.

Haitian Resource Rights Partners and Projects

When we talk about reconstructing Haiti, we can’t just talk about houses. It’s got to be a whole plan. We have to talk about reconstructing land, about total

reforestation.… We need food sovereignty. You can’t speak of food sovereignty without speaking of ecological, family agriculture. We need that and indigenous seeds.

We need for peasants to have their own land. Doudou Pierre, National Congress of the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPNKP)

Despite the fact that Haiti has many natural resources and a history as the richest colony in the Western Hemisphere, the people of Haiti continue to be deprived of justice, peace and prosperity. Civil and political rights exist on paper but human rights violations abound. A corrupt and ineffectual justice system has been unable to address the crisis. Indicators continue to place Haiti among the world’s poorest nations: 10 percent of Haitian children die before their fifth birthday and at least 81 percent of the rural population lives in absolute poverty.

Many of Haiti’s most pressing problems have external origins. From crippling trade policies to direct military invasion, Haiti has faced numerous threats from her neighbors. And now in the wake of the earthquake, outsiders are attempting to write Haitian history with the same kind of “reconstruction” policies that made Haiti so poor in the first place.

Through our partnerships in Haiti, Grassroots International aims to help eliminate hunger, build food sovereignty and increase social justice. Among the objectives of the program are: to promote sustainable

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food production and its equitable distribution; to foster opportunities for community-based economic development, especially for women; to strengthen grassroots communities’ capacities to become the authors of their own future; to secure human rights as outlined in the Haitian constitution and the UN Declaration; and to contribute to the restoration of Haiti’s natural environment as a key component of food security and food sovereignty.

Grassroots International currently provides support to the following organizations in HAITI:

The Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP) is among the most important local peasant movements in Haiti with a broad range of autonomous development activities to improve peasants’ livelihoods. In the economically devastated Central Plateau, Grassroots supports the MPP’s expansive range of self-help development activities aimed at improving peasants' quality of life and making their voices louder locally, nationally, and internationally.

Project for 2012: • Promoting Agroecology in the Central Plateau, through Reforestation, Prevention of

Erosion, and Organic Agriculture and Food Production: The MPP’s community and economic development projects aim to increase food production and food sovereignty in the Central Plateau through reforestation, soil conservation, and organic agricultural production programs. This reforestation and food security project is part of the MPP’s broader program to advance agroecology and to ensure access to clean water.

The National Congress of the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPNKP) is one of Haiti’s two national peasant movements. Grassroots’ support to the MPNKP focuses on the Creole Pig Repopulation project. The Creole pig was once the most important economic asset for Haitian peasants, but the entire population was eradicated under U.S. pressure when swine fever hit the Caribbean. The MPNKP has been reintroducing this life-giving asset. They see this project as an organizing tool that can work across regions and community groups. MPNKP is also active in agricultural and cooperative production.

Project for 2012:

• Creole Pig Repopulation and Goat Distribution: Once the Haitian peasant's most important economic asset, the Creole pig was eradicated under US pressure when swine fever hit the Caribbean. The MPNKP has been reintroducing this livestock asset into Haitian rural communities, and training workers to provide veterinary care and feeding, as well as in financial management of collectively held resources. This project does more than just re-establish a valued economic resource in the Haitian countryside; it provides a vehicle through which peasant groups, including those formed by women and youth, can build skills and become better organized and self-reliant. Over the past year, the MPNKP has also begun distributing goats and offering training in milk production and care.

The Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA) is a coalition of nine Haitian organizations working together to construct and promote sustainable, equitable and culturally appropriate development models for Haiti. PAPDA concentrates its work in several areas, including food sovereignty,

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debt relief and alternative development planning. PAPDA advocates for food sovereignty, as distinct from the more traditional food security strategy that has relied largely on imported food aid and has thus tended to erode local production and even consumption of locally produced grains and legumes. PAPDA’s activities include: training events and production of educational materials on nutrition; promotion of local food production and diversified rural livelihoods; and the implementation of demonstration units on soil improvement and soil and water management. Recently, they have also begun working with urban youth movements.

Project for 2012: • Food Sovereignty Campaign and Agroecological Pilot Programs with local peasant associations:

This project involves two pilot zones, one in the south and the other in the north of Haiti. In each program PAPDA operates model agroecological programs featuring learning exchanges with peasant-led organizations from neighboring Caribbean countries and local Haitian peasant associations. PAPDA has drawn upon these pilot demonstration projects to advocate for rural development policy change and food sovereignty strategies for Haiti at both the national and international levels. Because real food sovereignty requires fair and just land policies, this project advocates for comprehensive agrarian reform. For instance, with PAPDA’s help, local grassroots groups gained control of a critical plot of agricultural land in the north. They are now are cultivating this land with support from Grassroots.

The Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH), founded in 1991, is a coalition of nine of Haiti's foremost human rights groups. The coalition trains people at the grassroots level throughout the country to work within their communities for human rights, and to document human rights abuses and submit them to the Platform for follow-up. Using a variety of outreach methods including community radio, POHDH educates Haitians on their rights, prioritizing specific and more vulnerable groups such as women and children. The strategic aims are to improve human rights monitoring, implement policy and procedural change, improve assistance to victims and end the culture of impunity.

Project for 2012: • Haiti Human Rights Promotion and Defense : POHDH works to strengthen the coordination

among Haitian human rights groups and to make a concrete contribution to the resolution of ongoing human rights violations by: strengthening its national network of local human rights monitors; increasing its capacity to demand judicial reforms and action on the part of judicial institutions; increasing access to the judicial system; improving coordination with international human rights organizations; providing credible reporting to national and international audiences on the human rights situation in Haiti; and carrying out a broad public communications campaign against impunity and for a national culture of respect for human rights. Much of this work in the post-Earthquake context includes documentation and education in Port-au-Prince’s more than 1,300 refugee camps.

Middle Eastern Resource Rights Partners and Projects

The Palestinian youth used to feel, ‘We can’t do this, we can’t fight.’ We are trying to prove the opposite. We can do it. We can change things step by step to end the occupation. We believe that we are the solution for Palestinian leaders… Palestinians used to say, ‘We

will die for Palestine.’ Now we say, ‘We will stay alive. We will live for Palestine.’ Aghsan Albarghouti, Stop the Wall youth leader

Land and water have been at the core of the conflict between Palestine and Israel from its very origins. Access to and control of these resources is critical for achieving Palestinian self-determination and for an enduring and just peace with Israel. Grassroots sees the struggle for resource rights in Palestine as a framework that has effectively generated excitement and energy among those on the ground who are working for structural social change.

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Under occupation, Palestinians face the confiscation and destruction of land, homes, and water resources; checkpoints and roadblocks; and the expansion of settlements and bypass roads. The Wall in the West Bank and buffer zone in Gaza further impinge on land and livelihood as Israel continues to unilaterally expand its borders. And within Israel, Palestinians face the challenges of racism and discrimination, impacting their own rights to land, water, and food sovereignty. Despite these difficult circumstances, in 2011 news of the Arab Spring brought fresh into Palestine, spreading a tangible, though cautious, sense of renewed hope, particularly among the youth. Whether or not the Arab Spring ushers in a new path for Palestine remains to be seen, but 2012 has the potential to rekindle hope—and change. Grassroots International partners with organizations in the Middle East, supporting local grassroots initiatives that provide essential services and advance resource rights and food sovereignty. And our work with these partners—combined with that of allies and coalitions—facilitates international linkages to support the nonviolent Palestinian struggle for self-determination.

By building on the energy, expertise and resources that Grassroots International has been developing around resource rights, we are in a unique position to support creative, nonviolent efforts to protect and defend Palestinian land and water rights, which are fundamentally aimed at preserving the Palestinian national identity and sovereignty, territorial integrity and the very existence of the Palestinian people.

Palestine Grassroots International provides support to the following organizations in PALESTINE:

The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), established in 1983, has become a leading non-governmental organization in the fields of rural development, environmental protection and women’s empowerment, working with more than 160,000 rural and marginalized Palestinians. PARC promotes sustainable development and improves access to food through food sovereignty initiatives—at the household, community and territorial levels—through innovative projects such as the Farm-to-Table program linking Palestinian farmers with consumers in Gaza.

Project for 2012: • Gaza Urban Agriculture and Movement Building: PARC works with women heads of households to

use rooftops, backyards and small scraps of land between buildings for gardening and animal husbandry. The women are provided with vegetable and fruit seeds and seedlings, as well as with breeding rabbits or small fowl. To ensure the gardens’ viability, PARC works with participants to construct irrigation networks and install protective fencing for the plots. All the project’s participants receive intensive technical training and follow-up in addition to supplemental informational workshops and educational materials. Creative techniques such as rainwater capture, gray water treatment and reuse, the use of

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organic materials for compost, staggered planting seasons and small rooftop greenhouses enable households to produce food for consumption and for sale in the local markets while minimizing the negative impact on the natural environment and precious water resources.

Since many of these gardens were destroyed during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09, PARC has restructured their Urban Agriculture program to include more grassroots counterparts. The Coalition of Rural Development Associations, made possible by PARC, will continue to broaden their reach by bringing together farmers, women, youth and other rural marginalized sectors and local grassroots movements across Palestine.

The Stop the Wall Campaign is a coalition of Palestinian non-governmental organizations and community-based “popular committees,” youth and women that mobilize and coordinate efforts on local, national and international levels. These efforts are focused on stopping and dismantling the Separation Wall in the West Bank, resisting Israeli occupation and defending Palestinian communities’ rights to their land and water. The work of the Campaign is rooted entirely within grassroots movements and it serves as the coordinating medium through which local communities can strengthen their calls for support and justice.

Project for 2012: • Empowering Youth through Organizing, Leadership Development, and Media Training: Stop the

Wall (StW) has been working with youth since 2007. They have supported activities and programs aimed at educating and raising awareness among the youth, with a particular focus on the university campuses. A key aspect of the Campaign’s youth work involves developing committed and educated young leaders through political education on critical issues as well as practical, skills-based leadership training courses. StW is promoting youth volunteer work within communities and local and national initiatives. This year’s Stop the Wall Campaign project is focusing on lending crucial support to this growing youth movement, especially on working with the media and popular committees.

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) was established in 1986 in response to the social and economic situation of Palestinian farmers as a result of the Israeli occupation, which has marginalized agriculture and confiscated land and water resources. UAWC emphasizes sustainable development rather than emergency and relief projects. They create work opportunities, develop rural areas and communities, connect youth to the land, and develop women's skills and capacities. UAWC projects have included water and land reclamation and development, food security and income generation projects, digging and rehabilitating wells, and gray water education. The organization also maintains a seed bank in the West Bank city of Hebron. UAWC works closely with global resource rights movements, including several of Grassroots International’s partners in the Global South.

Projects for 2012: • Securing Farmers Rights: UAWC will continue to promote farmers’ rights through organizing,

capacity building and sustainable agriculture projects in order to improve the lives and livelihoods of farming families and secure their hold on their land. (Land that isn’t farmed is more vulnerable to being annexed by Israel under the occupation.) The project activities include: the formation of agricultural work committees; providing agricultural training and extension services; promoting cooperation and collective work among farmers in order to cultivate a variety of crops; managing water resources; constructing agricultural roads, water cisterns and retaining walls; and distributing seedling plants in order to enhance food security and project sustainability in target communities. The majority of the seeds used for the plants are from UAWC’s own heirloom seed bank.

• Women’s Empowerment Project: By working with women leaders, UAWC identifies community and individual needs and provides training in small-scale enterprises that are most likely to succeed. UAWC offers training on gender issues, leadership and vocational skills, project management, women’s rights and the cooperative model. In addition, female beneficiaries participate in economic projects such as bee keeping for honey production, raising poultry for egg production, sustainable fruit and vegetable gardens, community kitchens, sheep-raising or dairy cattle breeding. Developing

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women’s leadership is a key component of the project and, in recent years, has become a growing part of UAWC’s organizational mission.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) works to protect human rights, promote the rule of law, and advance democracy. PCHR has gained an international reputation as an independent voice on human rights vis-à-vis both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The PCHR monitors and documents human rights violations, campaigns against the death penalty, provides legal aid to victims of violations, and advocates for greater economic and social rights, including the rights of the Gazan fishers who have been denied access to their fishing waters by the Israel Defense Forces.

Project for 2012: • Protection of Palestinian Land and Property Rights: This project aims to solidify Palestinian land

and property rights, reduce violations against these rights, and ensure the restoration of land and property to their Palestinian owners. This is achieved through monitoring and documentation, legal assistance and representation, and international advocacy. Grassroots International’s support works primarily with PCHR’s legal unit, which links together many of their programs.

The Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) is the largest health care-related agency in Palestine and carries out a variety of programs including organizing village health committees, supporting healthy eating and local agricultural initiatives, and developing models of national health care delivery. Grassroots coordinates annual material aid shipments of medical supplies and medicines to PMRS for distribution to their clinics and hospitals throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Grassroots International will also continue to support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP). In addition to their work with children, women, and victims of organized violence in Gaza, they initiated and have been active in the Palestinian International Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza. Grassroots International supports GCMHP’s work providing mental health services to Gaza’s traumatized population—especially vulnerable groups such as children, women and victims of torture. GCMHP has carried out extensive therapy, training, and research since their founding in 1990 in order to respond to mental health needs of a population living under the twin stresses of siege and violence. RESOURCE RIGHTS GRANTMAKING IN AFRICA AND ASIA

Grassroots International is actively exploring ways to strengthen connections to resource rights movement organizations in Africa and Asia and to re-engage in those regions – both for us and for our partners throughout the Global South. As part of this effort, Grassroots made a number of grants in 2011, and will do the same in 2012, to organizations in both Africa and Asia whose work is aligned with ours. For example, In 2012 we will renew funding for the Via Campesina International Operational Secretariat housed within the Federation of Indonesian Peasants in Jakarta, Indonesia, as well as funding for a collaboration of 12

women-led family farmer organizations in West Africa for their ‘We Are the Solution’ Campaign, an agroecological alternative to the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations funded Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa. “

Building a world feminist movement against poverty In 2012, Grassroots is excited to support long-time ally and past grantee, the World March of Women. An international feminist action movement connecting grassroots groups and organizations working to eliminate the causes at the root of poverty and violence against women, the World March of Women mobilizes more than 5,000 groups from 164 countries and territories. It is one of the key strategic allies of the Via

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Campesina on the international level, and coordinates with the Via on campaigns to end violence against women, promote food sovereignty, and fight for climate justice. The WMW is currently based in Brazil, and will be playing an important role in the upcoming mobilizations around the twentieth anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit (Rio+20). Protecting farming in Africa from industrialization: The “We are the Solution” campaign According to our ally and grantee, Fahamu, women account for 70% of food production in Africa. For this reason, Grassroots is fostering initiatives that insist on the inclusion of women in any solutions to the problems of African agriculture. Fahamu and various African organizations are developing the continent-wide “We are the Solution” campaign (WATS) beginning with 12 women-led West African rural organizations in five countries. WATS is an African sustainable and agroecological alternative to the Gates and Rockefeller foundations’ powerful Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA). AGRA threatens to significantly shift Africa’s food production towards corporate-friendly chemical- and finance-intensive agricultural methods. WATS seeks to equip African food producers with the skills and tools to ensure that their voices are heard; to ensure the preservation of their traditional agricultural knowledge; and to use agroecological methods to produce more food without damaging the soil or the health of the farmers. GLOBAL LEARNING EXCHANGE: CROSS-BORDER MOVEMENT BUILDING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE The Global Learning Exchange program provides financial assistance to Grassroots’ partner and allied organizations in the Global South (primarily) and to U.S.-based allied organizations (secondarily), encouraging new methods of organizing and advocacy in the era of economic globalization. Specifically, the Global Learning Exchange program increases opportunities for strategic collaboration, organizing, learning and movement building among community-based organizations in the Global South and between them and their U.S. counterparts. Funding priority is given to 1) Grassroots partners; and 2) initiatives that advance resource rights in the Global South. In 2012 we anticipate continuing our support of learning exchanges, including the Dessalines Brigade – an exchange between Haitian and Brazilian farmers and land rights organizers.

GRANTS TO SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FOOD SOVEREIGNTY MOVEMENT IN THE U.S. Since 2007 Grassroots has funded advocacy, education and grassroots lobbying in the United States to change policies affecting our overseas partners as well as our U.S. allies. This year, as part of our strategic goals for advocacy and alliance building, we continued funding domestic ally organizations working to build the U.S.-based food sovereignty movement, as well as support food sovereignty advocates worldwide. Some examples include organizations such as the National Family Farm Coalition, the Border Agricultural Workers Project, and the Regional Operational Secretariat of the North America Region of the Via Campesina.