Saturday was the first semi-annual Isaan Community Gathering. In about 15 days, we put together a festival outside the CIEE office and invited all the communities we had worked with throughout the semester. At least 500 people must have been there, and there were a ton of vendors selling handmade clothes, kids selling organic fertilizer that they made at school, lots of games, legions of food, and several exchanges among the communities in the Northeast. The people affected by dams, mining, etc. that we had lived with this semester exchanged for about 5 hours about wawys they could fight for their human rights collectively, esp. by using the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. They've decided not to wait for the next festival to keep talking, so the anti-mining group in the North is going to travel to central Isaan to network with the HIV/AIDS group in central Isaan, and the rice farmers in Surin will meet with the villagers in the Southeast who were displaced by large dams. They're talking about building a new people's network and writing a set of people's law to oppose the post-coup military-directed constitution in the works right now.
There was an exchange about alternative education among the Thai Seeka Association (the group I was interning with this semester), the assistant to the mayor, and local schools, sharing ideas about locally-based curriculum-building that empowers kids with the skills to organize together and make good things happen in their own communities. They ran way overtime, too.
There was an exchange with some of the CIEE students and some students from Khon Kaen University, trying to extablish some first contacts so that we can work with their clubs and talk about what education should be based on their experiences. It was pretty low-key, but some of the KKU kids are incredible, and we hadn't had a chance to meet them all semester. I bought a shirt from a girl named pui--it's from a group she's in called We Change. On the back, it has a list of things in Thai that I spent a half hour trying to read, things like 'we don't go to 7-11' and 'we don't use styrofoam' or watch TV; to 'we question the rules of the Thai government' and 'we don't stand up straight during the national anthem'; to 'we think about not just ourselves but other people and the environment' and 'we think about our dreams for the world', and everyday we make that change within ourselves, and by doing so, we change the world.

And that's it! Program's done, I'll be on a bus tonight to Chiang Mai to stay at an elephant rescue park for 3 days, then I'll be back in Khon Kaen for a few before I stay with Paul in Bangkok on my way to the airport!

This is a piece some of my classmates just wrote. We are going to try to build networks of alternative education efforts in the States and build a program based on the education model we've been through in Thailand somewhere in the next 5 years. It's amazing how much this program believes in students and how effective that can be in fostering real learning.


Inspire, Inform, Ignite

As students, teachers, and community members, we stand behind models of education that encourage us to think for ourselves, to connect with the people around us, and to realize our power to come together to shape the world in which we live.
However, rather than create in us a sense of possibility, our experiences within mainstream education heighten our sense of limitation by ignoring our creative potential and social nature as human beings.

We lose sight of the transformative power of education to open us to the richness of the world as well as within our selves. The emphasis on learning through the memorization of facts and teacher-led lectures treats students as passive recipients of information, rather than as humans impacted by and impacting the world around them. Competition and hierarchy isolate peers and teachers from one another as well as stifle and degrade those with alternate learning needs. This model gives voice only to those with academic credential, rather than appreciating rich sources of knowledge found within all levels of society. This approach to education creates a fragmented society of humans isolated by their inability to reach out to one another. Unaware of its own history and power to make change, its members feel powerless and dependent on leaders. Our education system deepens pre-existing inequality and marginalization, rather than living up to its potential by chipping away at them.

At the same time, uplifting and hopeful models dot the world. A people-based program has the power to open minds, hearts, and eyes in a way no textbook can. Students and communities build the program together as they develop relationships and learn from one another. Instead of creating a worldview based on the opinions and framework of a limited number of authors, students look through the lenses of actors on multiple sides of an issue, from villagers to corporate officers, to government officials and activists, during home stays, site visits, and exchanges. Over the course of the program, the students’ vision of education as isolating and competitive dissolves as they come together as a group to process experiences and plan each step forward in order to get the most out of the program as a whole. Students learn to rely on their peers and community members as resources and friends, and realize the power of an informed, motivated, and caring group to affect positive change in the world. Both students and communities are empowered by the strength they find in themselves and by the connections made with others eager to hear their story.

In creating this program, we envision a more just and caring world that values the input and potential of each individual. We hope to provide an outlet for the creativity and unique leadership capacity within all people, as well as give students the tools to determine their own future among innumerable choices rather than passively accept the views and path espoused by the mainstream. We want to provide students with a space to realize their ability to connect with humans and the environment and to create a life for themselves of rich and dynamic relationships. We envision a United States unbounded by social hierarchy, but tied together by networks of people committed to standing for the welfare of all. We work to unlock the revolutionary potential of education to free us from the limits of ignorance and isolation and allow us to discover the meaning of being fully human. Everyone has role to play as this process unfolds. Join us!

"If I come in on Sundays, I need to feel like I've been to church. [Pause.] And that takes a little bit of alcohol."
-Ajaan Dave Streckfuss, Director of CIEE Khon Kaen

Fourteen acres of hope
by Darren Legge

Environmental activist Julia “Butterfly” Hill often sits in trees. July 2006 marked the first time she had ever shared a walnut tree with actress Daryl Hannah in South Central Los Angeles. For the better part of 17 days, film crews watched attentively as dozens of celebrities like Hannah and Hill joined the protests of the South Central Farmers, a group of families tending 14 acres of organic crops in the heart of the city’s industrial zone.

For 13 years, the South Central Community Garden provided over 2,000 of L.A.’s poorest residents with healthy meals and medicinal herbs as an alternative to high-priced medication. “We’ve done this out of sheer necessity to try to survive,” said Tezozomoc, a community leader. “We have no other choice.”

The City of Los Angeles purchased land from developer Ralph Horowitz in the 1980s in an effort to construct a trash incinerator. Public outcry killed the project, and the lot remained vacant until 1994, when the L.A. Harbor Department granted a revocable permit to the L.A. Food Bank to use the site for a community garden.

But, in 2003, the city sold the property back to Horowitz, who had plans for a cement-warehousing complex. On the morning of June 13, 2006, police surrounded the farm and gave residents 15 minutes to evacuate. Residents stayed put. On July 5, officers seized at least 39 protestors chained to the walnut tree, a picnic table, and barrels filled with cement. One man was arrested for throwing a milk crate at the driver of a bulldozer.

The community that had emerged from this now-demolished farm was something rare indeed. “I’m very thankful for these neighbors,” resident Maria Gonzales said of her life in the urban garden. “If you don’t have something that I have, I’ll give you some of mine. That’s the sense of respect and trust we have among one another.”

The community worked together to address its own most basic issues—namely food security and health. Among the South Central Farmers’ central tenets was the affirmation of the “fundamental right to political, economic, cultural, and environmental self-determination of all peoples.”

In fact, the United States federal government recognized this right in 1992 when it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article one, section one states: “All peoples have the right to self-determination.” In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

The country has acknowledged this universal right, but on the ground, people go to great lengths to defend their community resources. Why don’t governments protect them?

Perhaps they’re corrupt. Los Angeles sold the farm for $8 million under market value, stirring accusations of a backroom deal between Horowitz and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. “If we were to sit down and do a pure economic analysis, the benefits that [the city] would get from Horowitz would actually be negative,” says Tezozomoc.

Perhaps it’s because law gives corporations the same rights it ascribes to people. Freedom of speech provides a mandate for advertising and political contributions. The freedom not to speak makes compulsory product labeling unconstitutional. An 1889 Supreme Court decision established the “personhood” of a corporation, and in Los Angeles it allowed a developer to persuade the city to protect the inalienable rights of a warehouse. The 14th Amendment granted equal protection to blacks in 1868; today, it has emancipated the corporation.

Perhaps the U.S. Congress bit off more than it could chew when it recognized the right to self-determination. Throughout much of the democratic world, the notion of the community as a meaningful unit of society has all but disintegrated. In order to respect the collective rights of a people, a country must have communities that can make coherent decisions. Maybe self-determination simply isn’t viable in countries like the U.S.

But a growing international peasant farmers’ movement called Via Campesina believes it is possible. “The principle of food sovereignty supports all peoples in their right to produce their own food independently of market conditions,” says Via Campesina. “We reiterate our call to governments to guarantee us the effective access and control over the natural and productive resources that we need to truly realize our human rights.”

Human rights treaties and organizations offer a potential outlet for marginalized groups to fight for the resources they believe they are entitled to. Inadequate frameworks for the fulfillment of human rights drive people toward desperate measures.

Some of L.A.’s poorest residents resisted police from their avocados and sunflowers because they knew what they wanted, and weren’t about to abandon their 0.53 square kilometers of nourishment and hope.

Daryl Hannah saw the community’s potential to take control of its future. So did Dennis Kucinich and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Michael “Flea” Balzari. Preeminent among the South Central Farmers’ eclectic fan club was Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, who proclaimed, “L.A. could afford to keep this. It’s only a matter of values.”

Despite the wash of public support, the only ones who can defend this community’s rights are the people within. “To secure effective and active participation of communities,” writes Ruchi Badola of the Wildlife Institute, “programmes must restore the local institutions concerned.”

The United Nations has recognized important obstacles to people claiming collective rights, not least of which is the clamorous task of identifying who is entitled to claim what. Unless and until communities demand their rights, however, they will continue to deteriorate and suffer. According to the UN’s human rights-based approach to development cooperation, “human rights claims are generally made most effectively by people acting together as a group.” We only get what we are organized to take.

So I wrote an article for a publication that our group is putting together called Common Ground. It's about the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, who has recognized a community's right to participation in natural resource management as a human right. Several of the communities we've visited this semester have filed violations with the NHRC, citing this right. So I spent the last week researching these cases and others from around the world and interviewing a Commissioner from the NHRC, and I wrote a 2000 word article.

Then, the editors said, "we want you to write about a community garden in Los Angeles." Easy enough transition, right? Turnaround time, 24 hours.

Khon Kaen host family income: 5000 dollars a month
Landfill host family income: 5000 baht a month

Exchange rate: 1 dollar = 37 baht

My kidnapping

CIEE Security Guard (hired to be at the office at night), roughly 7pm: "Can I go to my older brother's house to help him process his rice tonight? I'll be back at 9:30pm."

Lara and me: "Sure, can I come?"

Six or seven villages and two meals later, I am sitting on the floor with the security guard, 2 or 3 cross-dressing go-go dancers (not sure about one of them), a large family, a gay 22-year-old neighbor, and a man who unconditionally refuses to comprehend anything that I say in Thai, even though the only thing he can effectively communicate in English is the word "baby". It is now that I learn that the security guard has already had 6 (20-oz.) bottles of beer and a quarter bottle of rice whiskey today.

9:45pm rolls around, and we begin to think about going into the rice fields. Eventually, we are throwing bales of dried, harvested sticky rice wrapped in bamboo ties into a large truck, or basically a portable rice mill. Extremely fun for the 4-7 minutes that I got to help. But I am exhausted and want to go home to sleep.

Two beers, one shot of whiskey, one very sensual same-sex "I love you," 17 "I have to go back to the office now"s and 4-600 "baby"s later, I am riding on a motorcycle with a falling-down-drunk security guard, and we safely return to the office by midnight.

That is the story of how I got kidnapped.

Last week (and weekend? what day is it today? is it daytime?) were filled with 4 1/2 days of coming up with a theme for our final projects and publication. Our publication will be about self-determination. We almost went with the theme of "legitimacy" instead, which I hated for the very legitimate reasons that it makes no sense and is stupid. It was excruciating. And I almost flipped out being trapped in the office for 10+ hours every day. It was bad. But I'm excited about what we've come up with, and I'm doing a final project about human rights and self-determination. The National Human Rights Commission in Thailand has recognized "participation in natural resource management" as a human right, or more accurately, a community right. It is interesting to try to explore if it's a viable idea in other places. And I can finally plan my own schedule, thank God.