Friday, Saturday & Sunday - June 27, 28 & 29

At the University of Southern California (USC) Campus in Los Angeles  

http://lasocialforum.org/joomla/

DRAFT Schedule: Preliminary Schedule/Agenda

List of Endorsers and Sponsors: LASF Endorsers/Sponsors

Register to attend personally at: LASF registration

Register to present a workshop at: LASF Workshop Submission form

There are some workshop descriptions posted on this site: LASF Workshops

Sign up as a volunteer LASF Volunteer sign-up

A 4 up Spanish/English handbill has been added to be downloaded from the website (under the resources section): LASF Resources

Blog for foro social Los Angeles: forosociallosangeles.org

Directions to USC: USC Directions

The following information may be useful in understanding where the LA Social Forum comes from and what it could become.

What is a Social Forum?

     The World Social Forum (Wiki) and its local and regional offspring are open meeting spaces where progressive social movements, networks, non-profits and other civil society organizations get together to pursue their thinking, debate ideas, formulate strategies and proposals, share experiences, and network for effective action. The forums bring together people who want to build a more peaceful, sustainable, and participatory world. They are characterized by plurality and diversity; they are nongovernmental and nonpartisan. A social forum is what you make it — a meeting place, a debating forum, an exchange of ideas and solutions, a theater stage, a celebration, a festival, a bazaar — it can be any or all of these.

     About 20,000 people attended the first World Social Forum in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The event, which has been held each year since then, drew 150,000 in 2005. The sixth WSF was “polycentric,” held in three locations: Caracas, Venezuela; Bamako, Mali; and Karachi, Pakistan. The next WSF is being planned for Nairobi, Kenya in January 2007.

     The World Social Forum was created to counter the influence and purposes of the World Economic Forum (Wiki), an annual meeting of top business and government leaders “committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

Documentary:

• Do You Believe? Another World Is Possible by Travis Winn, 16 minutes, about the 2004 WSF in Mumbai, India. Download and view this video for free or buy the DVD.

Founders [WSF]:

• Oded Grajew conceived the idea, presumably provided initial funding [Jerusalem Post]
• Francisco Whitaker, Former executive secretary of the Brazilian Commission for Justice and Peace (CBJP) of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of Brazil
• Bernard Cassen, director of Le Monde Diplomatique, president of ATTAC in France