This month there are many things to celebrate-- international workers, mothers and 5 de mayo just being a few of them.

And despite the country shutting down for a number of days due to the alleged swine flu, all of us at CASA are healthy and rooting around in the mud as usual.

At CASA Chapulín, we have hired 2 wonderful new coordinators, Sylvia Gonzalez and Andrea Caraballo.  Their email address will be colectivocasachapulin@gmail.com. Current coordinator Diana Denham will be moving to Los Angeles, the only city where there are more Oaxacans than there are in Oaxaca City!  She will continue collaborating with CASA from abroad and with regular visits to Mexico.

Meet the New Coordinators!

Sylvia Gonzalez Castro is a co-coordinator of CASA Chapulin in Oaxaca. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants whose parents are from Jalisco and Oaxaca.  She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota in Chican@ Studies and Feminist Studies.  Sylvia previously worked with an immigrant rights grassroots organization based in the Twin Cities as a youth organizer on issues of equal access to higher education and racial justice in the schools.  As a Xicana, Sylvia is interested in re-claiming our humanity and dignity across geo-political borders, generations, and identities.

Andrea Caraballo is a co-coordinator of CASA Chapulin in Oaxaca.  She comes from Uruguay and studied Architecutre at the UdelaR.  She has participated in student groups of Latin American architecture students on solidarity projects in Argentina, Brasil and Uruguay.  As an activist she has worked to defend the rights of youth and collaborated with a number of social organizations in Montevideo and Canelones.  She is a founding member of the collective ContraImpunidad (Against Impunity) which denounces state terrorism and impunity in Latin America, realizing solidarity actions and information campaigns about cases in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala and Uruguay, among others.  Since the assassination of the indymedia journalist Brad Will, she has formed part of the organization Friends of Brad Will in New York.  She enjoys going to rock concerts with friends and enjoying Mexican food that's not too spicy.

Workshops

We have recently finished a series of collective-member led workshops, which was a great opportunity to learn from each other.  David broke down the world of micro-credit lending for us, and updated us on the small scale community development work he’s been doing with coffee-producing communities here in Oaxaca through an organization called FomCafe.  We discussed the benefits and the gaps and contradictions of these lending projects, analyzing them from both the perspective of the capitalist market and indigenous communities. 

Leanne reported back on the thriving experiment in sustainable urban agriculture that Cuba has been working on since the fall of the Soviet Union.  She spent three weeks there studying the recovery/creation of these local food systems before coming to Oaxaca, and her photos showed vivid examples of the kinds of strategies we all need to be implementing around the world as we confront climate change and a shift away from fossil fuels.

Mandy and Rudi shared their experiences organizing in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers through the Student Farmworker Alliance; we had a rich discussion about immigration, labor rights, the state of industrialized agriculture in the US, and the increasing integration and convergence of social/environmental movements.   

We have also had a number of guest speakers: 

Laura Latorre, visiting from Madrid, did a communication workshop with us reflecting on the importance of active listening in both our personal and work relationships, and led us in a series of fun movement/theater based exercises. 

Saul Fuentes from Ideas Comunitarias shared an exciting model for alternative education that they started in 2006 – la Escuela para el Bien Común, or School for the Common Good.  It’s an 8 month long school-without-walls that brings together a diverse group of about 20-30 youth and adults from rural areas around the state of Oaxaca.  They include about 30% adults in the group to create inter-generational diversity as well as cultural diversity, so that youth can learn from their elders and vice versa, and work on issues that are real needs of their communities.  They meet for 3 days every month and travel to different places each month.  The focus is on how to design projects together for environmental sustainability and social justice, and building political participation of youth on the community level.

Andrew Willis, who just returned from five months working with the International Observatory for Peace in Columbia facilitated a participatory comparison of social movements in Oaxaca and social movements in Columbia. 

And Kovit Boonjear gave a presentation entitled "Building People's Organizations; experiences from urban organizing in Thailand", which included his work with slum and landfill communities in the northeast of Thailand.  Kovit is currently in North America on an exchange tour facilitated by ENGAGE- the Educational Network for Global and Grassroots Exchange.

Resistance to Gold Mine in San José del Progreso, Oaxaca

Recently, CASA members attended a forum, Tejiendo Resistencias, which brought together people organizing against mega-projects, especially dams and mining projects in central America and Mexico.  The forum was held in Ocotlán, near the community of San José del Progreso, where residents are resisting the exploration of an open-pit gold mine in their community.

Today's news is that people resisting that mine were attacked and displaced by public force.  Twenty people have been arrested.  This afternoon, a mobilization of residents and other people in solidarity blocked a road and demanded a permanent closing of the Fortuna Silver mine and the immediate release of all political prisoners.

 Please check the CASA website in the coming days for updates on this situation. CASA is researching mining projects in Mexico and will publish an article on our findings in the next two weeks.

Colectivos de Apoyo, Solidaridad y Acción

Oaxaca, Mexico