Local Students Bring Message of Change from Abroad

By Alex Henriquez
Special to The Lookout

Feb. 11 -- During a week when most Americans prepared for the biggest football game of the year, three Santa Monica High School students were in India listening to Tibetan monks, French socialists, Native American activists and Nobel laureates at one of the year’s most important events.

Last Thursday night, Rasha Ram, Molly Parent and Amara Russell shared the lessons they learned from the thousands of indigenous peoples, agricultural workers and social activists from around the world who attended the fourth annual World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbia, India.

"We were interviewing people about their experiences" to find out “what their worlds are like," Ram told the small audience of Westside Greens gathered at the party’s storefront on Pico Boulevard.

During the six-day event -- which meets each year to discuss the most severe social and economical problems facing the global community -- the three students spoke with delegates from a number of countries about everything from water rights, child labor and environmental degradation to women's rights and the roles of the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.

Using a multi-media presentation, which included a videotape featuring interviews with delegates and WSF musical and performing arts events, the young women plan to share the lessons they learned with the people of Santa Monica. Thursday night marked the first public showing.

"We've been back for literally a week," laughed Parent, who along with Ram and Russell, gave impromptu, but in-depth, explanations of the global community's most pressing issues.

The young woman also showed a rough cut of the videotape, which included testimony from a Native American man, a French delegate who runs a program to preserve Indian music and culture and a pantomime performance by Indian children advocating the preservation of basic human rights.

The presentation revealed some staggering statistics on the death and suffering attributed to unchecked globalization and free trade. In India more than 20,000 farmers, whose crops were destroyed by pesticides, committed suicide last year alone (many by eating the same chemicals used to destroy their crops).

"People should know," said Ram, who also described the thousands of villages in India that have no drinking water because major corporations such as the Coca-Cola Company have privatized the local water supplies.

The young women hope that by promoting awareness and an understanding of why such atrocities occur, individuals will be motivated to make a change.

"We can't vote on the WTO with ballots or punch cards," Ram said, but she noted that Americans can vote with their pocketbooks.

Ram, Russell and Parent encouraged the audience to become "informed" shoppers and not support the corporations responsible for the problems addressed at the WSF.

The three young woman have also come together to form the World Social Forum Project, a still "under development" Web site. The Project's mission statement is to document the issues raised at the WSF and to make them readily available to anyone interested in becoming involved.

A large portion of the trip's funding came from the Santa Monica High School's Associated Student Body. The group contributed $3,000, and the young women hope donations to the ASB will make student pilgrimages to the WSF a yearly event.

"It's important (to the world), to see people like us (Americans) caring," Parent said.

By "reaching out and exposing yourself to different kinds of life," she said, her peers will better understand their roles and responsibilities in the global community.

To learn more about the World Social Forum and the World Social Forum Project, please visit www.wsfindia.org and www.worldsocialforumproject.org.