Workshop
for The Human Rights Network of Rio Grande do Norte, Northeast Brazil, in
English-Speaking Countries
The objective of this page is to provide more information to all those
in English-speaking countries who wish to support the fight for human rights
in Brazil, specifically in the small and isolated state of Rio Grande do Norte,
situated in the northeast. A fight that , today, is being fought through the
network by the creation and consolidation of the Rede Estadual de Direitos
Humanos – RN (State Human Rights Network of Rio Grande do Norte). It is
the first partnership of civil society organizations, social movements, and
institutions that agree that the Brazilian federation is an indivisible whole,
and for this reason is dedicated to the active promotion, defense, and guarantee
of the fundamental rights of every citizen in every one of the 167 districts,
and in every community, urban or rural, of this poor and marginalized state.
In a world where financial capital, production processes, goods, and the
services and production of mass culture (and the life styles and value systems
that come along with their transmission) are becoming more and more globalized
as the rise of social exclusion and inequalities imposed by neoliberal and
unilateral market forces threaten public freedoms and economic, social and
cultural rights, social movements are more aware than ever before that:
1)
It is impossible to
understand the local realities – and therefor also impossible to think of their
solutions and sustainable alternatives – without understanding the global
economic, social, political and cultural processes. At the same time, it is
impossible to think of “global” without considering its repercussions and
taking into consideration the specific characteristics of the multiple
realities with which it interacts,
2)
The only way to confront the
enormous and powerful forces that impose the economic, social, political, and
cultural processes of neoliberal globalization and that, in various ways,
influence the local economic, social, political and cultural realities, is to
create networks that integrate the multiple fights, movements, and instances
which act in different social movements but share the same critical view of the
existing model, and provide a space for their interaction and dialogue. Only in
this way is it possible to formulate a concrete vision, simultaneously singular
and plural, of human rights as well as creating counter-power centers in every
community in order to exercise citizenship and unite the social forces that
promote our rights in all their aspects, which, in effect will oppose the
anti-democratic centers of economic and political power and ultimately
recognize citizens’ rights.
3)
Given the extensive
interdependence of the processes that traverse our contemporary reality (being
that economic processes directly influence social processes such as access to
education, health, housing, etc., and cultural processes such as respecting
different life-styles and traditions) and given the indivisibility of human rights,
recognized by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948
and re-affirmed by Declaration and Program of Action agreed to at the World
Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993, it is impossible to conceive of a
fight for the promotion of civil and political rights separate from the fight
to promote and guarantee economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights.
In other words – today more than ever before – one cannot think of the fight
against domestic violence, against torture in prisons, or in the favor of
freedom of expression without thinking of solutions for the effective guarantee
of the right to education, access to health, employment, a just salary, a
dignified life, respect for cultural and individual diversity, access to land
and water, etc.
For these reasons, in Rio Grande do Norte, the Centro de Direitos
Humanos e Memoria Popular (Center for Human Rights and Collective Memory,
CDHMP), an organization composed of members of civil society with its base in
Natal, the state capital, has conceived and is organizing the State Human
Rights Network in order to unite social movements, institutions, and
individuals dedicated to social causes and thus create activities for the
promotion and protection of citizens’ rights (as much civil and political as
economic, social, cultural, and environmental) in all the districts and in all
the communities in the state.
The State Human Rights Network sees Rio Grande do Norte as a whole
composed of all its districts and all its communities, integrated into
something much larger in which it continuously and permanently interacts (all
of Brazil, the rest of Latin America and the world), and the action to promote,
defend and guarantee rights as a plural process (linked to multiple actors),
with a microscopic focus (intending to reach all the districts and all the
communities in the state), but based in a unified, indivisible and strictly
interdependent conception of human rights, in which not one right can be
thought of or promoted in an isolated manner, separate from the promotion of
all the rest.
To know more about what the Network has already done, is doing and has
produced, simply access this page. We depend on your political support and, if
you are willing and able, your financial support in order for us to continue
moving forward strengthening our fight.
Concerning political support, if you are interested in organizing
activities in favor of the State Human Rights Network of Rio Grande do Norte,
in any locale in your country to spread the knowledge about the social,
political and cultural realities of this part of Brazil, to show the activities of the organizations
that make up the Network, to distribute information about it, or to fundraise in
order to help our fight, contact us by writing to tecidosocial@dhnet.org.br or
calling one of these numbers: 0055 84 221-5932 / 0055 84 211-2859 and asking
for Melissa, who speaks your language.
Concerning financial support, you can contribute to our fight for a Rio
Grande do Norte and a Brazil with social justice and rights for all by
purchasing our products (books, videos and CD-ROM about history, themes
relating to human rights, and revolutionary songs originating from several
countries) from our online store, at http://www.dhnet.org.br, clicking on Loja in the main menu, or by
donating as much as you are willing and able to our account:
Banco do Brasil – Natal / RN
Agência: 0022-1
Conta Corrente: 7357-1
Thank you for your support and solidarity. We depend on you in order to
continue fighting, every day, for a more just Brazil in a humane and sustainable
world, convinced that another world is possible and that, together, we can
build it.
< Voltar
