Resist

Peru - the core values of a campesino community

I have recently finished a 23 minute film exploring the social conflict caused by mineral mining in the north of Peru. Laguna Negra is a film that explores the core values of a campesino community through the stories of two farmers, the way the fabric of this society has been threatened by large scale mining and the destructive outcome of imposing a capital intensive model of development on a society based on traditional values.  The link to see it is: http://www.vimeo.com/6942613

by Michael Watts on 28/10/09 | Read More

People-centered economic development

My story starts with my colleage and founder’s story and a paper he delivered to the US Presidential re-election committee in 1996. it described a new model of people-centered economic development.
http://www.p-ced.com/about/history/
That led on to his work in Russia where he sourced a development project and microfinance bank for the city of Tomsk. Then on to Crimea to propose similar action for economic development of the repatriated Tatar community.
http://www.iccrimea.org/scholarly/economicdev.html
Obstructed by local corruption he spoke out about children dying in the streets, calling on a nation to develop a spine and confront their corrupt leaders. They did just that a year later.
http://eng.maidanua.org/node/331
Returning to the US to Chapel Hill NC, he lived in a tent and began…

by anonymous on 28/12/08 | Read More

India - Exposing what 'Development' really looks like

We are primarily a group of students between the ages 18 and 28 in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. We felt that the mainstream media in our city presented everything in binaries thereby leaving out a whole range of very important issues. For instance, the only two modes of economic movement or “development” are seen as being either on the agricultural path (where the media portrays agriculture to be an unproductive monolith from the past) or on the industrial path (where industry, despite its strong-arm aggressive mode of being, is seen as a pill which will magically generate thousands of jobs for the unemployed youth and eradicate poverty from India). Similarly, political opinion is seen by the mainstream media as being…

by anonymous on 28/09/08 | Read More