Published October 06, 2009 @ 02:07PM PT

By Saulo Araujo September 29th, 2009 The standoff in Honduras is reaching a critical point. The coup government, led by Roberto Michelleti Bain, has suspended five constitutional rights for 45 days. According to the Executive Decree, it is prohibited to assembly without government permission; express dissidence; organize; and participate in public demonstrations against the government. Also, the decree suspend the constitutional guarantee to a due process. In other words, the government has the right to detain anyone who is suspect to be a treat to the national security. This political move by Micheletti camp may have been emboldened by the soft position of the Obama Administration, which has been slow to align with other nations against the coup government, perhaps offering tacit ... Read More

Published October 06, 2009 @ 02:05PM PT

By Daniel Moss September 23rd, 2009 Chances are, the average U.S. resident has no idea that their demand for electricity might require that a Mexican village be flooded for a hydroelectric dam. The question is: if the human cost were known, would we consume just a little bit less? At Grassroots International, our bet is that a little bit of knowledge would go a long way.  For those who value human rights, that high social and environmental cost is not likely to sit right. Our unabashedly biased perspective is based upon the way we’ve worked for more than a quarter century: offering financial support to communities around the world whose natural resources have been extracted and despoiled and sharing their stories in living rooms, community centers and across cyberspace.... Read More

Published October 06, 2009 @ 02:02PM PT

By Nikhil Aziz September 22nd, 2009   Last week, Justice Richard Goldstone of the United Nations Human Rights Council's Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict and his colleagues relesaed their report on Israel's war on Gaza during December 2008-January 2009. Justice Goldstone is a former judge of South Africa's Constitutional Court (the country's highest) and a former Chief Prosecutor of the International Tribunals on the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Other members of the mission included: Advocate Hina Jilani, one of Pakistan's foremost human rights activists, a practicing lawyer at the Supreme Court of Pakistan and a former Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General on Human Rights Defenders, who was a member of the Internationa... Read More

Published October 06, 2009 @ 01:08PM PT

We will be having a yard sale this Saturday, October 11, from 10am - 3pm at the First Church in Jamaica Plain. The Grassroots Inernational Auction will begin on October 15th.  For more information visit www.grassrootsonline.org/auction We now have t-shirts for sale! They are only $14 each.  If you are interested, visit www.grassrootsonline.org/shirts

Published October 20, 2008 @ 09:09AM PT

Food for Thought and Action: A Food Sovereignty Curriculum now available for free download Grassroots International and the National Family Farm Coalition announce the release of a new popular education tool that can help you understand and fix the world food crisis: Food for Thought and Action: A Food Sovereignty Curriculum.It's been said that "you are what you eat." In the face of a global food crisis, it's clear that we've been forced to swallow far more than what's on our plates. Our global food system is broken, with nearly a billion hungry people around the world and millions more forced from their failed farms as industrial agriculture privatizes and despoils our water, soil and biodiversity. How can we respond to such a massive and urgent problem? The answer, according to small... Read More

Published September 16, 2008 @ 11:06AM PT

Haiti is once again confronting an emergency as Hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike have ripped through the island one after the other over the past weeks.  Grassroots International's partners on the ground expect the damage to far exceed past natural disasters.  We need to act now to help our Haitian partners and their communities rebuild.We are working with community-based groups in Haiti who have the capacity to deliver on commitments and the potential to stick with the issue long after emergency funding streams dry up. Grassroots takes the long view, even in a crisis.  We take care to build the power fo local producers and community-based groups, and we look to the local economy for food sources first.Our partners tell us stories of people who have been stranded o... Read More

Published September 16, 2008 @ 11:04AM PT

In a part of the world where hope is scarce, this past weekend has been one of those rare moments that have defied testing times in Gaza. More than 40 civilians from more than a dozen countries arrived on Gazan shores after a long sail from Cyprus on Saturday evening August 23, breaking the siege and bringing with them a powerful message of commitment to human rights for the Palestinian people. Those on board the two vessels included Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions; Lauren Booth, British journalist and sister-in-law of Tony Blair; and Anne Montgomery, an American nun.  When the boats approached the shore, several thousand Palestinians sang in celebration of their arrival, some of them setting out in fishing boats or swimming to meet them. This action ... Read More

Published September 16, 2008 @ 10:58AM PT

The Artibonite region is Haiti's rice bowl, and it could not be clearer as I traverse this lush valley. The rice fields rival those of Southeast Asia, spanning a breathtaking distance and then finally dissolving into a steep ring of mountains. A peasant working the fields is an understandably common sight around here. The more disturbing (and even more common) sight, however, is the rice imported from the US ("Miami rice") that is sold to Haitians in local marketplaces. It is unthinkable that Haitians would be forced to buy rice from the North at prices that they cannot afford in the very place they grow it. This has not always been the case in the Artibonite. Like many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Haiti was subjected to a trade liberalization and privatizati... Read More

Published September 16, 2008 @ 10:52AM PT

"N'ap forme" are the first words that I hear after stepping into an open-air training center high in Haiti's Central Plateau after a nail-biting plane ride across the mountains in a four-seater Cessna. The training center is run by the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP), a Grassroots International partner. N'ap forme is the Kreyol way of saying we are training, literally, we are forming ourselves. Chavannes Jean Baptiste, the longtime leader of MPP and a fixture in the Haitian fight for resource rights, greets me as he would a member of his own family, even though it is the first time we have met face-to-face. The center is buzzing with activity – peasant leaders from all but two of Haiti's 10 departments have travelled long distances to bring their people's concerns to the table an... Read More

Published December 18, 2007 @ 12:48PM PT

Grassroots International was selected as a finalist for the MySpace Impact Awards. Grassroots is in the final 3, with the winner receiving a $10,000 donation and extensive promotion throughout the MySpace website. If you are a MySpace user, please vote for us right now, then each day until December 24th and forward this to others: http://www.myspace.com/impactawards. This would be turning point for Grassroots International and result in more support for an extraordinary network of global justice activists around the world! Please vote for Grassroots International once a day, now until December 24th. Click Here To Vote Every Day This Week! This has been a monumental year for Grassroots International. We have granted over one million dollars to amazing grassroots organizations and in ... Read More