PHA-Exchange> Porto Alegre Social Forum

[Aviva]

PORTO ALEGRE: WORLD SOCIAL FORUM 2002

IN A PORT OF STRUGGLE AND HOPE, LET'S GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE, LET'S GLOBALIZE HOPE!


Restoring ideas

The World Social Forum 2002 was held between January 31 and February 5 in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.


We attended several important meetings in which indigenous peoples were able to assert their presence; we held a Popular Tribunal against Foreign Debt, and covered issues related to Medicines, Health and AIDS.


Days earlier the 1st International Forum for the Defense of the Health of Peoples was held, convened by the Latin American Social Medicine Association; it proposed that Health as a Human Right be incorporated into the World Social Forum 2003 and Rio + 10 to be held in Africa this year. It was also proposed to call a 2nd International Forum in the Defense of the Right to Health of Peoples in January 2003, and a World Health Forum in 2004.


Other upcoming events will discuss why social health policies of governments are not focused on the health of people. On this, regional and continental fora have been announced for the second semester of 2002, and the III World Social Forum 2004 that will be held again in Porto Alegre.


A focus on the Health of Ecosystems should be incorporated in discussions because it emphasizes the disregard imposed on this by neoliberalism, which tends to reduce health to the treatment of disease. We need to promote meetings around Health for People that also focus on ecology, feminism, human rights and the rights of Indigenous peoples, including health and traditional medicine. 

This meeting was a historical opportunity to promote the Right to Health and the Life of the Peoples of the World.

It is noteworthy to mention the contrast between the values of the World Social Forum and those of neoliberalism: solidarity instead of individualism; non-violence without tolerance for injustice; prioritizing the welfare of all above the importance of the market; plurality of values instead of the expansion of mercantilism; prioritization of the rights of the poor above the interests of the rich; participatory, not just formal, democracy.

Note from your moderator: This piece is a bit too long for full publication. Those of you interested in the rest of the text, write to me personally at aviva at netnam.vn and I will send it to you fully as an attachment.

Claudio

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20020422/4228b4a8/attachment-0001.html>