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Fight to retain the spirit of the World Social Forum!

Alternative Nobel Prize winner and co-founder of the World Social Forum Chico Whitaker visits Friends of the Earth Europe


Chico Whitaker, founder of the World Social Forum and Charly Poppe, Trade Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, share ideas about how to retain the spirit of the WSF into the future

Brussels, 11 December - Chico Whitaker engaged with NGOs at Friends of the Earth Europe's office today. Mr Whitaker was recently awarded with an Alternative Nobel Prize from the Right Livelihoods Foundation, for his lifetime dedication to social justice and his role in the foundation of the World Social Forum. The World Social Forum was created in 2001 to provide an alternative discussion space to the World Economic Forum, focusing on social concerns in the face of globalisation. It has grown in size at each consequent annual event. Today Mr Whitaker stressed that the NGOs like Friends of the Earth Europe have a vital role in fighting to preserve the underlying principles of the World Social Forum into the future. He urged activists to denounce all attempts by parties, politicians and ideologic movements to hijack the WSF for their own political interests. More about the World Social Forum. More about Chico Whitaker.
 

The World Social Forum
The World Social Forum (WSF) is an annual meeting held by members of the anti-globalisation movement to coordinate world campaigns, share and refine organizing strategies, and inform each other about movements from around the world and their issues. It tends to meet in January when its "great capitalist rival", the World Economic Forum is meeting in Davos, Switzerland. This is not a coincidence. The date was chosen because of the logistical difficulty of organizing a mass protest in Davos and to try to overshadow the coverage of the World Economic Forum in the news media. The WSF has prompted the organising of many regional social forums, including the European Social Forum, the Asian Social Forum, the Mediterranean Social Forum, and many local and national social forum, such as the Italian Social Forum, Liverpool Social Forum and the Boston Social Forum. The first-ever US Social Forum will take place in Atlanta in June of 2007. Most, though not all, social forums adhere to the WSF Charter of Principles drawn up by the World Social Forum. In 2006 the WSF was held in different cities around the world, including Caracas, Venezuela and Bamako, Mali (both in January); and Karachi, Pakistan (March). In 2007 it will be held in Nairobi, Kenya.


Chico Whitaker
Early Career and exile
Chico Whitaker was born in 1931 and received his diploma in architecture and urban planning in 1957. He left architecture school to participate in research on the standard of living of the inhabitants of Sao Paulo at the Research Institute SAGMACS. Whitaker joined the Planning Office of the State Government of Sao Paulo and became, in 1963, the director of planning for the Federal Government's Land Reform Superintendence, SUPRA. He left this function with the military coup in 1964, joining the opposition to the regime. During 1965-66 he could still work in Brazil, as planning advisor of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB). But at the end of 1966 the military forced him into exile with his wife Stella and their four children. During 15 years abroad, Whitaker initially lived in France, where he worked as a teacher in the training of Third World public servants, as researcher and as UNESCO consultant. He also worked in Chile for the UN Economic Commission for Latin America for four years, and lived through the overthrow of Allende. When returning to France after his stay in Chile, he coordinated in Paris, during six years, the "International Study Days for a Society overcoming Domination", launched by the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops with the support of four other Bishops Conferences and the International Commission of Jurists. This project facilitated the exchange of experiences among people fighting in 100 countries against all types of oppression.

Work for democracy and against corruption in Brazil
Back in Brazil from 1982, Whitaker first worked as political and social affairs advisor to Cardinal Evaristo Arns in Sao Paulo. He was one of the founders of the Sao Paulo Association for Solidarity in Unemployment and, always with his wife, was one of the main activists in organising the popular participation process during the drafting of the Brazilian constitution: The "Plenaries for popular participation", created all over the country for this purpose, presented 122 amendments to the Constitution project, with 12 million citizen signatures. From 1989 to 1996, Whitaker was elected twice as local councillor in Sao Paulo for the Brazilian Workers' Party (PT). In 1996 he left this function to return to work with civil society. He remained a member of the PT until early 2006, resigning when he considered the party was no more faithful to the principles of its foundation.

As Executive Secretary to the CNBB's Commission of Justice and Peace (CBJP) Whitaker both conceived the idea, and was instrumental in the implementation, of a Bill of Popular Initiative: One million signatures were collected against electoral corruption, and particularly the purchase of votes. The Bill was approved by Congress in 1999. Whitaker sits as the CBJP's representative on the National Committee of the Movement Against Electoral Corruption, created after the approval of the Bill, which involves more than twenty of the major national civil society organisations in Brazil. The Bill has already had great impact: Since the first election respecting it, in 2000, more than 400 mayors, deputies and councillors, who were found to have been involved in electoral corruption, have lost their mandates.

In 2000 Whitaker was one of those who conceived the idea of the World Social Forum (WSF) and played a key role in bringing it to realisation.


Friends of the Earth Europe campaigns for sustainable and fair societies and for the protection of the environment,
unites more than 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups
and is part of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International.