SJEJA travels to Nairobi, Kenya to participate in the World Social Forum 2007

1/22/07. Nairobi. Four members of the South Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance traveled to the World Social Forum in Kenya to present workshops on environmental justice issues, such as the dumping of toxins in low income communities of color and the struggles of agricultural farm workers in New Jersey. They promised to shared information with people facing similar issues in very different parts of the world. For example, one of the outcomes is that our partner organization, CATA: The Farmworker Support Committee, is translating pesticides labels from Chinese to English that South African farmworkers can read the instructions. Recognizing how important colored paper and pencils are to children in Kenya we are sending a package with school supplies to a teacher in Nairobi. Being part of the World Social Forum '07 was a rich, rewarding, and unforgettable experience. The WSF brought more than 70,000 participants together in Nairobi. They were nuns, slum dwellers, academics, activists, Nobel Prize winners, students, trade unionists, NGO staffers and government officials including Kenneth Kaunda, the former President of Zambia among the more than 1,400 participating organizations from 110 countries. Nelson Carasquillo sums it up: "The opportunity to witness and understand the aspirations of people from other countries provides all of us the opportunity to appreciate ourselves differently."
SJEJA Presenters: R. Mongaliso Davis, Eleanor Vine, Nelson Carrasquillo, Olga Pomar