[Peace] May Day Regional Conference at UIC

[Peter Miller]

>From: "Sergio Mojarro" <jaguar83 at email.com>
>To: <peterm at shout.net>
>Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 15:15:03 +0800
>
>Sorry About that.. I just thought it would be a little lame cause there's 
>a lot of information...but here it is:
>
>
>Saturday April 27th
>
>MAYDAY REGIONAL CONFERENCE
>
>
> From Local to Global: the Midwest on Fire
>
>
>
>
>A forum for organizing and strategizing
>
>
>
>“Welcome to a space to educate ourselves about realities and flash point 
>struggles in the Midwest, to get involved, to coordinate, to network, to 
>design common strategies, and finally to link our activism to the global level”
>
>UIC CAMPUS
>
>Welcome to the MAYDAY organizing workshops. During this conference, there 
>will be workshop sessions during the morning and they will be repeated 
>during the afternoon.
>
>Here you will find 3 items:
>
>I.       Goals of the workshops
>
>II.      How can we accomplish these goals??
>
>III.    Suggested Workshop’s Outline
>
>IV.             List of workshop topics
>
>
>
>
>
>I.   GOALS:
>
>
>The thrust of this conference is Organizational. Although there will be an 
>educational component, it would be awesome trying to facilitate network 
>building and strategizing sessions.
>
>Explicitly the conference will be a serious attempt:
>a)~    To facilitate and build ties amongst activists/organizers in the 
>Midwest with the long-term goal of establishing a functional “social 
>response” network in the region.
>
>b)~    To learn about regional flashpoint struggles/campaigns, what’s 
>burning in our communities and how to support each other.
>
>c)~    To connect our local struggles to global resistance movements and 
>vice-versa.
>
>You can meet other people working on the same or related issues that you 
>are working on or interested in!
>
>You can begin to coordinate with these people in order to work together in 
>the future!
>
>II.               HOW CAN WE START TO ACCOMPLISH THESE GOALS?
>
>*Workshops are based on actual struggles/campaigns currently going on in 
>the MidWest. These could be community-based struggles directly affecting 
>neighborhoods and towns throughout the region. Also, current regional work 
>being done on national/global issues (ie. anti-war work).
>
>Come to share your actual lived organizing experience!
>
>This is not about academic stuff or discussion just for its own sake!
>
>**Workshops combine an informative part & organizational part.
>
>Time for educating + Time for networking, discussing strategies, 
>campaigns, actions. . . towards furthering activist contact in the region 
>around the workshop’s topic.
>
>Everybody can be a speaker!
>
>The workshops can serve as mini-forums for your struggle!
>
>***Workshops can facilitate the “plugging-in” of new people interested in 
>the topics and the movement.
>
>Get in on the organizing!
>
>III.           SUGGESTED OUTLINE:
>
>1.     EDUCATIONAL PART:
>
>-Presentation about the topic in general & local work being done
>
>by some key activists from the region (Q&A)
>
>2.     ORGANIZATIONAL SESSION with a Facilitator:
>
>-Collective Brainstorm: Looking for common strategies
>
>And finally

>
>3.   **FRIENDLY REQUIREMENT**
>
>Come up with an Action Proposal!
>
>This could be a protest, a campaign, a conference, or anything that could 
>use serious support from others in the region.
>
>[Every workshop would come up with something in order to make it part of 
>the “COLLECTIVE ACTION TIMELINE for the MIDWEST” to be presented at the 
>end of the last Panel of the day.
>
>IV.             List of workshop topics and Contact Persons:
>
>1.      FIGHTING FOR A ROOF: Affordable Housing  & the struggle against 
>gentrification in the Midwest [ Tobe-       ]
>
>2.      WINING PEOPLE’S CONTROL over HIGHER EDUCATION: Stopping 
>Corporatization! Democratizing our Colleges and Universities! [Earl   ]
>
>3.      EDUCATION FOR ALL: Reclaiming opportunities in targeted 
>communities [ ?  ]
>
>4.      “THIS IS OUR NEIBORHOOD!”: Keeping our streets safe from POLICE 
>BRUTALITY & RACIAL PROFILING  in the MIDWEST [Ted]
>
>5.      PAPELES PARA TODOS-No human is illegal: Immigrant Rights and 
>Amnesty [Aasia?]
>
>6.      BRINGING THE INTIFADAH to the MIDWEST: the struggle for 
>Palestinian Liberation & How to build more solidarity in this region 
>[Stephanie and Hakim]
>
>7.      MAYDAY: HISTORY & FUTURE [   ]
>
>8.      PATRIARCHY IN THE BARRICADES: Building egalitarian movements, 
>organizations, meetings, 
! [Tanuja]
>
>9.      ECOLOGY in the MIDWEST: defending our survival & sustaining our 
>future (antinuclear, community gardens and farms, community eco-education, 
>etc) [Tom]
>
>10.  DEFENDING THE AGRO in the MIDWEST: Family Farms, Rights and Justice 
>for Farmworkers, and Food Sovereignty [Mari & Seb]
>
>11.  THE CORPORATE AGENDA FOR MENTAL HEALTH [Catheline]
>
>12.  A SUCCESFUL CAMPAIGN: the struggle against Corporate Animal Cruelty 
>[Mike]
>
>13.  STOPPING THE “ENDLESS WAR” AT HOME and ABROAD: Efforts by the 
>anti-war movement in the Midwest [?   ]
>
>14.  WORKERS OF THE MIDWEST UNITE!! Labor Struggles in the Region: 
>Building Rank and File Control & Solidarity for and amongst Workers 
>[Clif???????]
>
>

>
>  #####SOME TIPS FOR “CONTACT PERSONS”#####
>
>These are some current workshop themes.
>
>(Please, rename your workshop if you feel it necessary, current titles are 
>tentative and add your contact info in the parenthesis)
>
>  There is need for some contact persons in some of the themes. Please, 
> get excited about one of them!
>
>There is the possibility to add a new one (until 18 or 20)
>
>As a “contact person” your role would be to invite activists from the 
>region (for the moment the workshops are a bit Chicago heavy) working on 
>your workshop issue:
>
>Try pitching the workshop as a network and outreach opportunity!
>
>Maintain contact with them to make sure that they are coming.
>
>Keep in mind, that all the contacts that you are doing now are very 
>valuable for building an effective DATA BASE for future long-term work in 
>the region: please compile them having complete information including: 
>NAME, ORG, PLACE, CONTACT, CURRENT CAMPAIGN, NOTES, etc.
>
>The workshops require facilitators: please, think about who it could be. 
>Maybe yourself or another person (friendliness, assertiveness, brevity, 
>and focus are good to keep in mind). A “Guide for Facilitators” is coming 
>soon, so please, let us know who is going to be the facilitator.
>
>
>You can use this DOCUMENT when you are inviting people to join the 
>workshop to clarify what they can expect from the workshops. This would 
>also ideally empower workshop participants since it would help put people 
>on more or less the same page, so they can guide and focus the workshop’s 
>direction.
>--

Peter D. Miller, Ph.D., Organizer
Illinois Education Association/NEA
809 S. Fifth Street
Champaign, IL 61820
(217) 337-5174
(217) 384-7763 (fax)
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