IDEX partners, Rose Williams from Biowatch South Africa and Prativa Subedi from the Women Awareness Center, Nepal (WACN) along with IDEX Staff, Katherine Zavala, Yeshica Weerasekera and Rajasvini Bhansali were in Detroit last week at the second U.S. Social Forum. They have each blogged about their experience at the US Social Forum. Prativa Subedi, Founder and Director of WACN reflects on her time in Detroit and what the US Social Forum can mean for social justice.

We arrived in Detroit and checked into the Marriott Hotel. With 72 floors, the Marriott is just one of the many skyscrapers in Detroit. Coming from Nepal I wasn’t used to being inside such tall buildings. I had a room on the 34th floor. The view was amazing, but it seemed unnatural to be so high without having hiked up a mountain.

I found that the majority of people participating in US Social Forum are very concerned about creating a just and sustainable society. Many of the workshops goals were to raise awareness and share best practices in order to bring about economic and social justice, and gender justice. I found some similarities to the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995 where we looked at the world from women’s lens. At the Social Forum, we viewed the world with a social justice lens to help us see the world that want to live in and understand how to survive with dignity.

There were many workshops, over 1000. All were equally important and relevant to my work in Nepal. Moreover, it was very difficult to decide which I should participate in. I selected those of most interest, prioritized these, and finally had my agenda for the conference. Finding the right rooms was just as challenging. Maps were used everywhere to move around the forum. This was a new experience for me, as we don’t use maps in Nepal to get around.

The “Poverty Summit,” food security sessions were on Tuesday, June 22, before the formal opening ceremony. Many people who participated in these workshops are concerned about the community ownership in the food production and marketing processes. They are against systems that put profit before everything else. However, in developed countries people do not know the value of community-based development activities and sustainable agriculture.

The opening ceremony started outside and moved into Cobo Hall. I observed that the rally was very well organized as it slowly entered inside the auditorium to celebrate. Seeing people carrying the earth impressed me, we need to take care of our Mother Earth if we want to survive.

The next day (Wednesday) I participated in the workshop on “Women Fighting Poverty; Stories from the Frontlines and Women’s Movement 21st Century” and “Historic Movement for Funding Social Justice Organizing in 21st Century.” Participants and organizers were talking a lot about the loopholes of welfare scheme introduced in 1960 in USA. I shared my experience of women coming together to create their own social security systems by themselves. Together they are able to support one another through the savings and credit groups and women cooperatives that they form.

On June 24, I joined the “Women and Global Justice” workshop organized by the Center for Change. One of the main speakers, a feminist scholar and writer, spoke about the Transnational Feminist Movement, which engages in direct action and advocacy and doesn’t just focus on rights. I agree with her opinion. As such I am involved in the economic empowerment of women through community-based development activities and advocacy at the same time. I shared my opinion of linking human rights with gender and development. It was a very fruitful workshop that I enjoyed.

Later the same day I participated in “Roots of the Economic Crisis and the Case for a Solidarity Economy” organized by Center for Popular Economics. Participants were seeking alternative economic activities to sustain families and society. People shared how the best model could be cooperatives owned by community. A part of this session, debated the root causes of the economic crisis. One statistic highlighted was that in the 1970s, household debt in US was 40% of GDP, but by 2008, household debt was 90% of GDP. There were trends leading to this crisis, stagnant wages, inequality, deregulation and financializations. Due to the decline in manufacturing, workers are paid less. I can relate it to the Nepal context in that while economic liberalized policies were introduced, a majority of the rural population still has no access to formal financial institutions. Rural women see cooperatives as an alternative model that can both reduce the negative impacts of a market economy and allow them access benefits now available to them as a result of a market economy.

I had an “Aha” moment listening to this discussion. My organization, WACN, has already been able to establish community owned development activities. This has strengthened many women’s cooperatives in Nepal. Our economy is subsistence in nature and I see strength in it. But it can’t feed everyone. We need to commercialize and scale up, but in a way that farmers (male and female) can keep control of decision-making. This is important to prevent future mismanagement, such as the use of chemical fertilizers for example. These were introduced two decades ago without providing correct information to farmers. Now the quality of the soil has degraded and again farmers have poor yields. They are now trying to improve their soil using traditional methods like composting. There is a need to protect this sustaining type of lifestyle that introduces women to friendly and eco-friendly development.

I hold a degree in economics and work for the economic and social empowerment of women. Most of the workshops related to economics at the grassroots attracted me and so I joined the workshop “Economics at the Grassroots.” Through this workshop, and others like it I learned a lot about the collective and cooperative activities and initiatives in the US.

Finally, I had the pleasure to be part of the IDEX group with Vini, Yeshica, and Katherine. I also had the opportunity to meet Rose Williams, Executive Director of another IDEX grantee Biowatch.

I value and respect the work of Biowatch and attended the IDEX / Biowatch panel on Friday, June 25. There were lively discussions about food security and sustainable agriculture. Legal steps had been taken by Biowatch to get rid of Genetically Modified (GM) crops in their area and to get proper information from the South Africa government and Monsanto about the environmental impact of GM crops. After many years of legal battles, they were successful. This demonstrated how if one is working for disadvantaged people you have to struggle with the system in the respective countries.

In looking back at the week I reflected on how The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing motivated many women to work for women’s rights and promote women’s issues. I hope that space that was provided by the US Social Forum will inspire many of the participants to continue to address the issue of social justice.

I would like to thank IDEX for giving me the opportunity to share some of my experiences in different events in the Bay Area with many development organizations including the US Social Forum. It gave me strength to share about my work and I gained more confidence to share the stories of sustainable farming and cooperatives managed by rural women in Nepal.