Ever since they brought a tank along to a protest about arms exports, I've been fighting poverty and injustice with WDM - and winning.
Ben Niblett, WDM Central Leeds
Sign up to E-NewsOutreach: citizenship and solidarity
This section of our website introduces WDM Scotland's outreach project, Global Connect, a fun community workshop programme to develop active global citizens.
1. Project background - this page
2. WDM Scotland's track record with communities
3. Global Connect - an overview
4. Global Connect - programme detail
5. Interested in working with us?
6. Current: Global Connect in Edinburgh South West
Project background
The links between communities in developed and developing countries are not hypothetical. As consumer or employee, ordinary Scottish people are shaped by what is happening globally. In turn, the decisions and actions that Scottish people take can transform the lives of people around the world.
With increasing awareness at the grass-roots of the local impacts of global economics, climate change and international power-relations, it has never been more urgent to return the right of oversight to those communities in Scotland most affected by the global policy-making seemingly beyond their control.
Global Connect and its sister project Reel Lives aim to facilitate powerful unity and opportunity in place of potential division and disempowerment. Local people need creative ways to explore their rights and responsibilities as global citizens. Communities must also be able identify and act in solidarity with their international counterparts to strengthen their collective power in a global society.
In the absence of this, unemployment in Scotland has rocketed in the last six months, while millions in developing countries have lost their jobs. Some areas of Glasgow have life-expectancy rates that are comparable to parts of West Africa; while communities living in the shadow of Scotland’s high-emission industries share a battle with African farmers calling for environmental justice.
These and many other examples provide compelling comparisons, but more importantly they open the door to new ways of looking at and responding to local issues. Some of the most inspiring stories of community empowerment from the last century have originated in developing countries in struggles for democracy and equality – from South Africa to Bolivia.
By invoking this lens, and by developing the capacity of Scottish communities to connect with contemporary international movements around the critical issues they face together today, Global Connect will put Scots marginalised by globalisation at the centre of the world.
Click here to read about WDM's track record with communities...
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