Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Grassroots Projects

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Grassroots Projects

Grassroots Projects is a Dutch international charity organisation that helps the oppressed poor. Grassroots Projects started in July 2005 when several social globalists wanted an alternative to the current international charity work. The organisation tries to build up a social alternative. Therefore, instead of defending the free market, Grassroots Projects ideology is to show direct solidarity with the people they are helping.

Contents

Projects

  • In Morelia, Chiapas, Mexico, Grassroots Projects financed and worked on two water projects. These water projects have connected two Zapatista communities with a water system.
  • In El Petén, Guatemala, Grassroots Projects is financing indigenous farmers who are against Plan Puebla Panamá which is trying to open southern Mexico and Central America to foreign investment.
  • They financed several organisations in the Mexican state of Oaxaca that have been involved in the Oaxaca protests. The money went to Indymedia Oaxaca, CIPO and prisoner support for the demonstrators.

    • Solidarity tour 2006

    In October 2006 a group of nine volunteers of Grassroots Projects went on a solidarity tour to Mexico. In co-operation with Catas a water containment system was built to collect rainwater. During the Project several Zapatistas were trained by Catas to build their own tanks in the future. The team members also visited the rest of Chiapas.

    In October and November 2006 the solidarity groups also visited Oaxaca. The people in Oaxaca are currently embroiled in a lengthy conflict that has resulted in at least seventeen deaths and in the occupation of the capital city of Oaxaca by federal police. The conflict emerged in May 2006 with a strike involving the local teachers' union and then grew into a broad-based movement pitting the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) against the state's governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Protesters are demanding the removal or resignation of Ulises Ruiz, whom they accuse of corruption and acts of repression. Grassroots Projects went there as a group of independent media to write about the Oaxaca conflict for Indymedia.

    References

    Grassroots Projects Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA