WEBINAR: Agro-ecology, Food Sovereignty, and an international Green New Deal

WATCH RECORDING HERE

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This webinar will center environmental justice leaders from organizations in Colombia and Nicaragua with the goal of expanding the mainstream U.S. dialog around climate justice and the Green New Deal to include an internationalist perspective. As we address the climate crisis, it is imperative that we reject capitalist, extractivist, imperialist models of interaction at all levels: interpersonal, national, and international. Join us as we discuss our collective liberation and the end of colonialist corporate control through systems of racism, classism, and patriarchy.

PARTICIPANTS INCLUDE:

Quin Galvin (she/her/hers) is a full-time volunteer and fellow with IRTF whose passions in environmental and social justice stem from a long-standing interest in peace studies and conflict resolution. She has been interested and engaged with social justice and people's liberation movements theoretically for years but it was in working with and following the leadership of IRTF that she has stepped into her power as an activist for our collective liberation.

Mayling Martinez is a young peasant leader from rural Matagalpa in northern Nicaragua. She represents the international relations work for the ATC in her department and participates in the international women’s articulation of La Via Campesina.

Oscar Salazar is a campesino leader and environmental activist from La Vega, Cauca in Southwestern Colombia. Oscar is a member of the Process of Popular Unity of Southwestern Colombia (PUPSOC) a popular education network, working to create political unity between campesino, Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities facing existential threats by extractive mega-projects and illegal armed groups. Oscar faces many threats for his activism for environmental justice. In August of 2019, armed gunmen attempted to assassinate Oscar and members of his security team as he made his way to a community meeting in La Vega.

Akshai Singh (they/them) is a first generation US American and an organizer based in Northeast Ohio. As a board member of IRTF, Akshai has developed local trainings to connect the Northeast Ohio community to its own intersections of racialized environmental injustice and US imperial policy. Also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) EcoSocialist Working Group, Akshai’s work primarily focuses on connecting struggles in labor, ecology, and anti-militarism.

Fausto Torrez is the Secretary of International Relations for the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC) of Nicaragua and coordinates the Operating Secretariat for the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo, the continental expression of La Via Campesina. He was a part of the founding of the CLOC and La Via Campesina during the 500 year campaign of Black, Peasant, Indigenous and Popular Resistance that took place three decades ago.

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IRTF is proud to partner with Sunrise Movement Cleveland, Solidarity Collective, Young Latino Network, OPAWL, and American Rivers for a series of three webinars.

We would like to invite you to a three-part webinar series in August that will delve into topics regarding the intersections of environmental justice, racism, and classism. These webinars will discuss work being done by progressive people and organizations internationally, nationally, as well as locally in Cleveland. We are offering this program to educate people on how the unification of these progressive movements are critical in creating a Green New Deal that works for all people.