Sergio Ciancaglini de La Vaca

Today we feature an interview with Sergio Ciancaglini, from La Vaca cooperative.  For the past decade Global Exchange Reality Tours have included La Vaca on our rich educational itineraries. Learn about the work and mission of La Vaca in this two part interview series conducted by our summer assistant Kathleen Reynolds.

Kathleen: Perhaps we can begin with a brief history of how La Vaca began and your work with La Vaca?

Sergio: La Vaca is a work cooperative that was born in the year 2001, which was a time of much crisis in Argentina where money disappeared and there were lots of social movements that had to take responsibility of their own life. They had to take on the responsibility to invent work and survival. In this year 2001, is when the La Vaca began as an information agency through Internet – it was one the first of its kind in Argentina that tried to reflect this new universe of actions we saw in large quantities of social experiences. From that moment, for example, we published on the Internet our reporting, our articles and later we began to work on books.

Our first book was, Sin Patron.  Sin Patron is about the recuperated factories in Argentina and it is available in the US. We presented it in Counter Union in New York with Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis. It is book that is written originally in Castellano Spanish by us, but later more versions were printed in English in the US, Italian and later in Portuguese in Brazil. We then wrote seven more books and the latest one is Argentina Originara. It is a book about native peoples of Argentina. With the passing of time, we started a newspaper, a monthly magazine called MU, which is a magazine published every month that we started five and half years ago. Out of the roots of the work we do, each piece of work gives us a new idea. From the work we had been doing, it occurred to us to do a radio program. You can listen to it via Internet at www.lavaca.org. It is a radio program that is broadcasted on 109 radios throughout Argentina. It is broadcasted through all university, community and local radio stations throughout the country.

It is a program created as an alternative form of social media and it is important to say that like many other commercial radio stations, this radio program also reaches all areas of the country. We do training courses for department chairs universities and high schools on social autonomy and we have a cultural center that is also a bar called MU Punto Encuentro Buenos Aires where there are conferences and sell leading independent editorial books. Here in Argentina, we drink el mate, our typical drink. Here it is made with herbs from cooperatives that are not sold in traditional supermarkets. The entire project of La Vaca is work of communication, of culture, of cooperativism and social economics.

Kathleen: What is the work you do in the cooperative and how did you begin to work with La Vaca?

Sergio: I have been a journalist for many years. I have always worked on the topics of human rights. For example, I covered the trials on the military junta in 1985, which was the first time in the democracy it was possible to try people who had raped, tortured and killed during the dictatorship. I have always worked with the most important media in Argentina for example, the newspaper Diaro Clarín, the newspaper la Razón and the newspaper Página Doce,… I worked as editor and reactor. In the year 2001, the experience of La Vaca began with all the people who were around me and so I joined. Now I work writing many articles of the monthly MU magazine. At the same time, I run the radio program that is broadcasted on 109 radios around the country and I am the President of the cooperative.

Thank you Sergio for the years of effort and energy that you have put into organizing La Vaca and welcoming our Reality Tours delegates to La Vaca and  Argentina!  Next week we will delve further into the power of those exchanges.

TAKE ACTION!

Experience for yourself: Join our “Building Economic Justice from Below” trip this November and learn more about the 200 ‘recovered’ co-operative factories in Argentina.

(Photo: Flickr / 23rdstudios.com via CODEPINK)

We have a new blogger in town, and her name is Rebekah Olstad. She recently joined Global Exchange as our Cuba Custom Reality Tours Director.

For her first post, Rebekah briefly revisits the impact of a recent delegation trip to Pakistan.

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Global Exchange Co-Founder Medea Benjamin and delegates from CODEPINK recently completed sections of a peace march to tribal areas of Pakistan that have been limited to foreigners in the past decade. Their mission was to protest and draw awareness to US drone strikes in the area.

One Pakistani woman wrote to the delegation:

“Your coming to Pakistan has touched so many hearts that you cannot even imagine! You were able to do what hundreds of millions of dollars spent by USAID in TV ads to win hearts and minds in Pakistan has failed to achieve!“

By showing on the ground solidarity, the women on this delegation made powerful people to people contacts with Pakistanis, which is especially needed at a time where polls have shown that three out of four Pakistanis view the United States as an enemy.

At Reality Tours we want to applaud the efforts of these women and their allies for spreading a mission of support, solidarity, and concern for the Pakistani people.

TAKE ACTION!

To view current Reality Tours to countries such as Burma, Egypt, and Nicaragua, where you too can make a person-to-person difference, click here.

Kids in Cuba. Photo Credit: Global Exchange

The following is a guest post by photographer Ron Herman, who has lead three customized Global Exchange Reality Tours to Cuba. But first, worth checking out are these articles about recent changes in the Cuba travel industry:

• DETROIT FREE PRESS: Is door slamming shut for travel to Cuba?
• THE HAVANA NOTE: Will OFAC Pull the Plug on People to People Travel to Cuba?
  

To keep up-to-date about Cuba travel news, subscribe via RSS to our Reality Tours blog for future updates.

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Photographer: Bill Scull

“The Universal Language of Photography” by Ron Herman

Looking back on the three customized reality tours I have led to Cuba thus far, one of the things I like most after arriving in José Marti Airport is watching the trip participants’ eyes light up on the bus ride into Havana Vieja. As the sights, sounds, and smells, that are so distinctively Cuban, whirl by the bus window, it hits them that they finally made it to Cuba. And with that realization, smiles emerge on their travel worn faces……and the camera shutters start to click.

Photographer: Don Wheatley

I have led photo workshops in various other countries, but it is the people that keep drawing me back to Cuba. Unlike any other destination I have traveled to before, I find the people in Cuba to be more warm, open, and willing to engage with the camera. Even though many trip participants weren’t able to speak Spanish with the Cuban people they photographed, they were able to communicate through the images that they shot and then showed them on their camera’s LCD screen.

Photographer: Ron Herman

Many of my alumni have commented that because of the embargo, they didn’t know how Cubans would greet Americans. They quickly realized that Cubans differentiate between American people and the politics between our two governments, and that they are as curious about us as we are about them. Often you can find American flags or other American symbols displayed in local shops.

Several photographers have returned with me on subsequent trips to Cuba. They too have fallen in love with Cuba. Over the course of multiple trips, we have developed relationships with the people we met and photographed. Many of the alumni and myself have returned to Cuba with prints of the images that we shot of them and their family, which are always warmly received.

Cuban friend receiving prints shot on a previous trip. Photographer: Mary Ellen Kaschub

After returning home, it is always great to share our travel stories with each other and relive our Cuban adventure through each other’s images. Even though we were photographing in the same locations together, it is always fun to see how differently each person saw and visually recorded the experience.

I am looking forward to returning to Cuba this Spring to lead another exciting customized reality tour for photographers (March 30 – April 13, 2013) in addition to a LGBT trip (May 9-19, 2013) centered on IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia) and its related events in Havana and Cienfuegos.

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TAKE ACTION!

Check out this lively video about Ron Herman’s Cuba trips:

• For more information on Ron Herman’s trips to Cuba go to: www.hermanphotography.com/tours.html.
• Global Exchange is a licensed Travel Service Provider for Cuba trips. For more information on Customized Cuba delegations please visit our website for details or email leslie@globalexchange.org.

Ron Herman is a photographer and Chair of the Photography Department at Foothill College located in Los Altos Hills, CA.

Many of our Reality Tours Costa Rica alumni will remember the brilliant educator and activist, Marta Sanchez.  Marta has organized and facilitated our Global Exchange open and customized groups since 2005. Today Marta shares her story with us.  Learn how she became part of our Global Exchange family!

I got involved with Global Exchange Reality Tours after my enrollment in the Palestine-Israel delegation  about 10 years ago.  That intense experience unveiled to me an excruciatingly painful reality I was short to imagine. Although far from attempting a comparison, this experience turned on many lights in my understanding concerning the reality of my own country and the “convenient blindness” we people use to suffer from.

By that time, Costa Rica was in the middle of a historical process: the eventual signing up of the  Central American Free Trade Agreement.  Like most of the population, I was unaware of  the serious implications of CAFTA against our Social State of Law  which we “Ticos” always took for granted!

Given this historical context, Andrea  my daughter, who happened to be the Central America RT coordinator at GX by that time, organized an RT program for Costa Rica.  I promised her to find someone who could trip lead the first delegation, but my best candidate failed the last minute, and I had to take up. Here began a series of living experiences that taught me a lot about the myths and realities of my own country. As an illustration, the first of these experiences came from a  meeting with Costa Rican former president Rodrigo Carazo. Carazo was a passionate anti-CAFTA fighter and, in his home, the GX delegates and myself received  first-hand information about the uncertain future of  Central American economies if Costa Rica ended up signing the treaty — Costa Rica was the last country in Central America to submit to CAFTA. This meeting was illuminating in unusual ways. For example, the delegates could not believe a politician of such an exceptional moral stature, like Carazo had displayed this special deference towards us by inviting us to his home!

GX delegations now visit Costa Rica from coast to coast. The living experiences our delegates can tell are many and varied, and the resonance of these encounters are still there. One of the tours, for instance, made it possible for a community to count on attractive alternatives for kids and  their mothers  to rescue both even from prostitution. Back home, one of our delegates pulled  the necessary strings to  provide funds, so that ASOMUFAQ, in the Central Pacific, could finish a theater project  and a  restaurant. Today that community has a theater group for kids that now participate in annual national contexts (and Global Exchange delegations can count on a delicious restaurant that serve typical dishes prepared by these women…)

I´m sure the living experiences GX Reality Tours have brought  to me and the many people involved have affected us one way or another. The reality of a tourism-dependent country such as Costa Rica can only be revealed by conscious tourism, and this only justifies  the meaning of this program.  Now I only organize the itineraries on a pro bonus basis but, from the comments by the delegates, I can say that the Mission and Vision of Global Exchange Reality Tours  is amply accomplished in Costa Rica.

Interested in meeting Marta and traveling beyond the normal ecotourist path in Costa Rica this year?  Join us and explore Ecotourism and Sustainability on the Northern Pacific Coast in November.

Thank you to Reality Tours staff alumni Andrea Valverde for sharing our mission and for introducing us to your mom. We have been blessed to have her host our members.

Special Thanks to our Reality Tours intern Kathleen Reynolds for conducting this interview.

Reality Tours participant in Esphahan.

As the political and diplomatic crisis surrounding the Iranian nuclear agenda continues, Global Exchange invites you to travel and visit Iran on a Citizen Diplomacy Reality Tour.

We believe U.S. travelers to Iran can build people-to-people ties and foster dialogue and peace between the countries.  As past participant Alexa Stevens wrote of her 2011 trip:

“My journey does not boast military might nor invasive power; rather, I travel simply with the hope of bringing back knowledge”.

The exquisite ruins of Persepolis.

Citizen diplomats to Iran experience both the complex and engaging fabric of contemporary Iranian civil society while exploring also the tremendous historical and cultural sites in Iran. Travelers will visit the ancient ruins of Persepolis, the tomb of renowned Sufi poet Hafez, and the towers of silence in Yazd.

Interested in traveling to Iran?

Apply now! The application deadline for our September trip is this Friday, June 22nd, so please act quickly to join this life-changing excursion.

Dr. Vandana Shiva

Reality Tours has explored the rich history, geographical beauty, vibrant culture and pressing social and ecological issues in India for over two decades.

This November we are honored to invite you on an organic journey of a lifetime called Sacred Seeding & the Rights of Nature, inspired by the special invitation by Dr. Vandana Shiva.

Vandana Shiva is globally renowned. As an activist she has coordinated, supported and learned from grassroots networks on a wide range of issues across India. As an advocate, especially in international flora, she has proved to be one of the most articulate spokespersons of counter-development in favor of people-centered, participatory processes. As an intellectual she has produced a stream of important books and articles, which have done much both to form and address the agenda of development debate and action.

Watch Dr. Vandana Shiva’s invitation here:

About the Sacred Seeding & the Rights of Nature Trip:

Learn about the struggles and success of those that  have pioneered the organic movement in India. Enjoy hands on opportunities to get in the fields of Dr. Shiva’s organization and farm Naydanya. Engage with the country’s biggest network of seed keepers and organic producers, for the conservation of indigenous seeds. Be inspired by the powerful potential of the Rights of Nature campaign and what it means for local communities and ecosystems, as well as the potential that these laws have for the whole planet.

Shannon Biggs

Reality Tours has visited Navdanya many times over the years. This year Dr. Shiva will spend four full days with us and will  be joined by our Global Exchange Rights of Nature expert, Shannon Biggs. Shannon’s  advocacy brings the global issues back to the global North where she is working to educate, organize and support communities to exert their rights in the face of globalization.

TAKE ACTION!

• Join us on this exciting new Reality Tour or customize your own!
• Get Involved with our programs and campaigns today!

Kirsten Moller and Carleen Pickard at Global Exchange's Open House, October 6, 2011

Walter Turner, Board President

I’m excited to pass the torch to Carleen who has been part of Global Exchange for thirteen years. As Associate Director for the past year, she has worked with members, global partners and staff to build on the people-to-people connections that are integral to GX and essential to fighting for a better world. She also knows the organization thoroughly and is committed to the goals of economic, social and environmental justice, peace and sustainability–values core to Global Exchange’s founding mission.

After two decades, the founders, are ready to embrace new projects and hand over the day-to-day operations to the next generation.   The founders, Kevin Danaher, Medea Benjamin and I, are excited about creating a smooth transition to new leadership after 23 years.  I will fulfill a new role at Global Exchange as Director of Organizing.

Kirsten Moller, Founding Director

I am thrilled and honored to leverage Global Exchange’s legendary signature campaigns that have challenged corporate rule, fought oppression and built alternatives to injustice. With our amazing staff and the support of all of you, we will truly harness the energy of these exciting times and guide a fundamental shift away from a society of greed to one of caring, from a profit-centered economy to people-centered, from currency to community.

Carleen Pickard, Executive Director

We announced Carleen as our new Executive Director at our October 6 Open House. Be sure to check out the pictures of the event, and a video of this special occasion.

Support Global Exchange and celebrate this exciting transition to new leadership, and give a special gift or sign up to be a Monthly Sustainer by committing to donate $5, $10, or $25 a month.  Our work is not possible without you!

A first-generation American, Sophia Michelen has had a passion for travel and photography from a young age. With work from the illegal gold mining industry in Ghana to the hidden lives of North Koreans, the world is anything but foreign to her. After graduating from college, Sophia lived and worked in the Middle East with an international NGO office based in Dubai, UAE. Now, Sophia is continuing work in public health and international health policy research in Boston, MA, while preparing for her next trip and photography project.

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Run-Away Crab Needed to Enter North Korea by Sophia Michelen

When most think of celebrating their 23rd birthday, eating out, nights on the town, or a weekend trip to a relaxing beach treat might come to mind. However, my 23rd was to be different – a secluded celebration with a trip to North Korea. Reflections, acquired wisdom, aspirations and new adventures often accompany another year of one’s life; so, to bring in my new year, I strictly started with the later of these – an adventure! Having just arrived back from several months living in the Middle East, I wanted to start my 23rd year with an adventure to a place I, like many Westerners, felt to be light years away (or rather, behind,); to a place I have been fascinated with for over a decade, to a place where very little is understood – North Korea.

You can imagine the shock of family and friends to my proposed trip, alone, to the DPRK. Just days after arriving back to the United States, I would be heading east again. No one really understood. With the Cheonan having been sunk just months prior to my trip, and with tense foreign relations between my country and theirs, many tried to dissuade me. They continually mentioned that North Korea would be there tomorrow and that there would thus be other opportunities to travel there. However, I knew for me the time was now – I wanted to experience a Soviet-style way of life that never existed in our Western world. So, on September 9th, 2010 I flew east – first stop, Beijing.

I am an avid traveler, fearless in all respects of flying. I am thrilled at being thousands of feet in the air – where time seems to stop, where my books, my journal and my mind are best friends; where iPhones and the internet are paused for these certain hours of your life, where everyone around is going to the same destination – despite nationality, age, language or race. These strangers become your friends and the plane, your home. However, out of the hundreds of flights I have taken, this plane ride felt different – my thoughts were uncertain as to what to expect. I was a young woman traveling alone to the other side of the world, to tour with people I had never seen in a country that few understand. Except for a few passages regarding North Korea in my Lonely Planet “Korea” book, even my usual companion of a guide book was not available this time. I was about to enter booming Beijing, only to quickly leave and enter primitive Pyongyang. I had plenty of time –literally – to ponder and assess just what I was getting myself into. However, even I was yet to fully understand my motivation for traveling to North Korea.

I landed in Beijing and within minutes of searching for the unknown face of my guide, I was approached by my smiling group leader. This was step one of starting my adventure into the DPRK.

After the rest of the group assembled at the airport, we headed downtown. Before soon, the infamous Beijing became apparent. We passed modern and ancient buildings, bikes, scooters and cars. However, I was unable to appreciate my surroundings in China – I was still waiting to move forward into North Korea. We settled into our rooms, familiarized ourselves with the schedule for night one, and soon headed to dinner nearby.

At the restaurant we sat in a private room at the end of a larger dining room where, as would be the norm for the remainder of the trip, food was brought to us without ever opening a menu– the meals would always be pre-chosen for us. The food was tasty and the camaraderie from the rest of the group was welcoming. Our Chinese guide was reviewing our Beijing itinerary with us while questions regarding North Korea were directed to our American group guide. In talking about trip formalities, the conversation was soon interrupted by a crab – which loosened the mood through a roar of laughter.

Our Chinese guide, mid-sentence, jumped after a live crab that had escaped the kitchen, tried to crawl up his leg. I just could not believe it – it literally felt like it was out of a movie. The crab kept crawling around the room until one waitress finally caught it… with chopsticks! Needless to say, I have never had an experience like this. But it was the after-dinner chit-chat that made me realize just how unique this trip would be.

No longer was I just going to enter a new country, but I would be entering North Korea with several unique individuals. Being the youngest, with over eight decades of history collected between the nine of us, I found myself surrounded with some of the most interesting people I had ever met – our guide, an Italian human rights activist from the Bay Area; a teacher from Jersey, having lived in Venezuela for years and having travelled the world to over 100 countries to date; a retired corrections officer that remembered the Midwest when horses were still tied to posts outside shops; a Chemist who migrated from the Philippines, now living in California; a pastor from Chicago, once one of President Obama’s neighbors; a 6-foot-four programmer, freelance comedian who is studying to become a priest; and a Chinese-American economist who moved to the U.S. when she was very young, now working for the World Bank. And then the real character of the group – an 82 year-old ex-Navy pilot who still flies his plane across the country and travels worldwide, whose stories mesmerized me as I listened for hours on American history– from the Great Depression, to the war, to life in South Boston before technology, and who would end up teaching me the samba and tango in the middle of a Pyongyang hotel lobby.

It was at this dinner that I realized that my trip had begun – that part of the adventure I had been searching for was transpiring through meeting these fellow Americans that, under any other circumstance, would be rare to meet. With this dinner, my trip to North Korea began.

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Join the Next Delegation to North Korea!

Interested in traveling to North Korea? We have a Reality Tour delegation coming up at the end of August, and other trips planned after that. Find out the details here.

Picturesque Hawaii

Global Exchange recently announced Hawaii as its newest destination for socially responsible travel. The trip is called Aloha ‘Aina: Militarization, Ecology and Hawaiian Self-Determination.

In 1959, Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state, but to many native Hawaiians, the islands’ annexation and statehood violated both international law and their right to self-determination.

From December 16 – 23, 2011, Global Exchange’s Reality Tours program expands our socially responsible, educational adventures to Hawaii to explore the issues rarely mentioned by the media, the travel industry, or the local government itself.

The islands’ tropical climate and natural beauty make them a popular destination for tourists, sportspersons, and scientists from around the world, but visitors seldom hear about real issues affecting the island’s fragile ecology and native people.

Makua Beach in Hawaii

This Reality Tour will reveal the history and struggles of the native Hawaiians, the impact of the heavy U.S. military presence on their daily lives and fragile island ecosystems, and the vibrant indigenous culture of a people who never had a voice in becoming part of the United States.

Global Exchange Reality Tours are based on the idea that travel can be educational, fun, and positively influence international affairs. Our trips provide individuals the opportunity to understand issues beyond what is communicated by the mass media and gain a new vantage point from which to view and affect US foreign policy.

Hawaii Trip Itinerary
Here is a rundown of the tentative itinerary for this new and exciting trip:

The trip begins with an “alternative” tour of Honolulu, including a visit to ‘Iolani Palace and other important cultural sites, an appreciation of the natural beauty that the island’s tourism industry is built upon, and a discussion of Hawaii’s history, resistance, and militarization. The latter is highlighted in an alternative tour of Pearl Harbor and the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial.

The program further diverges from the usual tourist clichés with a visit to Hanakehau Learning Farm, a project that offers a model for converting former military zones to peaceful and productive uses by restoring farming in the wetlands on the shores of Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa (Pearl Harbor). The tour then travels to Ma ka hana ka ike to help restore traditional agri- and aquaculture, and to Wai’ahole to meet representatives of local environmental organizations.

The next day focuses on traditional Hawaiian culture and cosmology, with a visit to Lihu’e and the Kukaniloko Birthstones, one of the most significant cultural sites on O’ahu, to learn about the area’s historic and religious importance. From there participants travel to Mt. Ka`ala, the highest peak on the island of O`ahu, whose flat-top is a familiar sight to island residents.

A hike through the forest ends with a visit to an organic farm project to learn how it is improving food security and the economic and social realities of marginalized communities by “growing food and empowering youth”. The day concludes with a visit to Makua Beach and a briefing by locals on how Hawaiian culture and the role of nature in their cosmology and day to day lives.

The ecological theme continues with a visit to Paepae o He’eia, a non-profit group started by a group of young Hawaiians dedicated to preserving the ancient He’eia Fishpond located in He’eia, Ko’olaupoko, O’ahu, for the community. Participants then learn how the revival of traditional canoe voyaging helped spark a Hawaiian cultural renaissance, and experience it first-hand by paddling before meeting with community activists dedicated to ocean stewardship through education and advocacy.

Makua Delegation in Hawaii

MORE INFO ABOUT THIS TRIP

• Visit our website for more info about this exciting trip to Hawaii, including how to register, program highlights and cost;
• Download a sample itinerary here for complete trip details;
• Contact Alessandro for more info about this trip.

Aloha Aina!

Our goal: figure out a way to offer new Global Exchange members this holiday season a little something extra beyond the standard membership benefits, in exchange for their support.

The recession kept coming up in conversation. We figured most people would have limited funds to spend on gifts this year, so why not offer supporters who give Global Exchange gift memberships this holiday season some cool freebies to go along with the membership. More bang for your buck, so to speak.

We came up with six different Membership Gift Packages, so folks could choose the theme that interests their gift recipient the most. Each one would cost the standard Global Exchange membership rate ($35) but in addition to the usual perks (including discounts to our Fair Trade stores and quarterly newsletters), we’d also include both Fair Trade chocolate AND coffee, PLUS a whole other gift (depending on which gift package they choose.)

Here we are now, the new gift membership packages just launched online, and we’re sincerely proud to offer up these great deals as we add to our growing 40,000+ list of international supporters!

One of the packages is called the Socially Responsible Traveler Membership Package.

What it comes with: In addition to the Fair Trade chocolate, coffee, and gift membership certificate, you’ll get a special coupon worth $200 off any 2011 Global Exchange Reality Tour PLUS a TassaTag™ (Travelers Take Action Against Sex Slavery and Trafficking) luggage tag.
Your gift supports Global Exchange’s Reality Tours travel program, which enables US citizens to explore peace, justice and environmental issues in 35 countries around the world.

If you’re as excited as we are about this gift, then go online to order yours soon. As one might suspect, it’s a ‘while supplies last’ type of situation.

Remember, in addition to the Socially Responsible Traveler Membership Package, there are 5 other packages to choose from!

Happy choosing and happy holidays, from all of us here at Global Exchange!