Americas Social Forum
Location: Brecht Forum
Thursday, October 9
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm EDT
Join together, in real time, with participants of the Americas Social Forum in Guatemala, for a simultaneous workshop on collaborative democracy and the Internet. This workshop is a unique opportunity for those of us in New York to attend the forum, interact directly with Latin American activists and organizers, and contribute to building a collaborative and democratic agenda on the Internet. Learn more!
The book about the Internet for progressive activists.
"...a must read for anyone who is wanting to organize meaningful social and political movements."
Ana Willem (USSF Tech 'Zine)
The Praxis Project was founded in 1996 on the belief that meaningful social change occurs when people believe they have the right to control the policies and programs that affect their lives. Since then, The Praxis project has provided technical support to movement groups in order to build and strengthen the left's capacity to shape progressive policy.
However, don't let the activity fool you into thinking that The Praxis Project is just another service provider. While offering communications, organizing, and technology support to movement groups around the country, The Praxis Project has also contributed enormously to the political development and thinking of activists and organizers.
As their name implies, The Praxis project is not a single issue group. Their focus is on the intersection of health, policy, and race. Nearly all progressive activism and organizing touches in some way on one of these three issues. However, in many ways the intersection is more important than the issues themselves. By focusing on the intersection, The Praxis Project is helping the left develop knowledge and experience that can be used and re-used in many different environments. Understanding the intersection of race and health, for example, can help us understand how many issues relate to race beyond health. This type of thinking is vitally important for building not just single organizations, but a vibrant and powerful movement for social change.
A good example of how The Praxis Project tackles issues is childhood obesity. Who hasn't read the news stories? It's fairly difficult to avoid them and nearly impossible to read them without thinking about about the individual children.
The Praxis Project's analysis begins at the structural level, not the individual level. What neighborhoods are most affected? How does this health issue correlate to race? Income? Answers to these questions lead to questions like: How does food enter a neighborhood? What local policy decisions affect where, how many and what kind of grocery stores are allowed to open? What correlation is their between obesity levels and the existence and quality of upkeep of parks and recreation centers?
In much the same way that the Environmental Justice movement turned environmentalism on its head by revealing the race and class impact of environmental destruction, The Praxis Project is transforming our understanding of health from an area of exclusive individual responsible to a complex social issue we need to tackle as a community.
May First/People Link has a special relationship to Praxis beyond their membership. Josue Guillen, one of our founders, was hired in 2006 to be the Technology Manager - in charge of both internal technology needs and provide technology support to the network of groups that The Praxis Project works with.
Josue has developed and supported several important technology project since he started. The Health Justice Report Card (http://healthjustice.us), for example, draws from several health indicator databases to provide health report cards for every zip code in the country, broken down by race.
Katrina Information Network (KIN, http://katrinaaction.org) - an online activism site that is keeping the gulf coast on the national agenda - has seen it's web site and web strategy revamped thanks to the support of The Praxis Project. The site connects local organizing groups like JJPL and the Safe Streets Coalition with supporters from around the country, enabling both an alternative distribution of information and a critical advocacy component, as supporters respond to calls for action.
This action proved critical with the campaign around the toxic levels of formaldehyde found in the FEMA trailers provided to survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The email campaign organized by KIN not only targeted the FEMA officials responsible for the trailers, but also targeted the Department of Justice officials that are investigating fraud in FEMA.
One day after the action, FEMA held a press release announcing that it was recalling the toxic trailers.
We expect more of the same in the coming years for The Praxis Project. As one of the few political projects focused on strengthening the left, their work will continue to be critically important to create the world we want to live in.
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