Testimonials

Testimonials

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Here are stories from the people responsible for helping make the USSF in Detroit possible. Their stories can help people better understand and appreciate the process, and we hope they'll inspire more folks to join us in Detroit this June!

We invite you to share your testimonials about your USSF Atlanta 2007 experience. Help us tell others what the Social Forum is about as we kick-off for USSF Detroit 2010! Need wiki help?

Some ideas about your experience may include:

• How did you get there?
• What social movement organization or activists did you travel with?
• What were you most interested in learning about or doing at USSF Atlanta?
• What what your favorite session or panel?
• What was it like to participate in the Opening March?
• What information did you share with others when you returned home?
• How did USSF Atlanta change the organizing work you do in your grassroots group or organization?

• The Children's Social Forum was my main reason for going (and bringing my 6-year-old daughter) to the 2007 US Social Forum.

Last summer, we had done a tour of northeast anarchist and radical bookfairs. I had co-presented a workshop called “Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind” about the need for the anarchist community to support the parents and children in its midst. The workshops were generally well-received by a predominantly childless audience, some of whom already helped the parents and children in their groups, some of whom had never thought about the issue. Siu Loong had participated in the various childcare and kids’ programs at each bookfair and had always had a good time, although I noticed that, for the most part, the kids’ activities had little to do with the issues at the adult workshops.

For me, the Children’s Social Forum was an opportunity to see how the broader social justice movement was incorporating the next generation. This wasn’t just childcare—a room set off to the side where well-intentioned volunteers and kids were isolated from the goings-on of the larger group. No, this promised to be a forum for kids to explore the issues that we grown-ups were talking about.

I wrote a piece about our experience at the Children's Social Forum here: http://www.leftturn.org/?q=node/971

and am hoping that next year's USSF in Detroit will also have children's programming and inclusion.

Victoria Law, NYC

“Mi nombre es Flor Crisóstomo, Soy indígena Zapoteca de Oaxaca. Mi situación es la movilidad constante dentro de US debido a la persecución por parte leyes migratorias rotas. Es importante que organizadores de las diversas comunidades hagan acto de presencia en el foro que se llevara a cabo en Detroit para poder conocernos y trabajemos en buscar soluciones para hacer un mundo justo que sabemos es posible.”

“My name is Flor Crisóstomo. I’m Zapoteca from Oaxaca, Mexico. My situation is one of millions where I must constantly be moving within the US because of government persecution under broken immigration laws. It’s important to me that all organizers come together in Detroit so that we may know each other and find collective solutions toward the just world we know is possible.”