Latin America Week Events in Galway

galway | miscellaneous | event notice Tuesday April 13, 2010 09:46 by Sarah C - N/A

April 14th - 22nd Various Venues

Galway’s annual celebration of all things Latino kicks off next week and as usual includes a myriad of free public events including film screenings, talks, literary readings, a table quiz and a visiting guest speaker from ‘Via Campesina’ the international peasants movement. The full program of events is available below and from www.galwayowc.org

for further information please access the program at www.galwayowc.org or contact the Galway One World Centre on 091- 530590.

Latin America Week in Galway is organised by a coalition of the following organisations: Galway One World Centre, Latin American Solidarity Centre, Amnesty International Galway Mexico Group, Galway Trades Council Global Solidarity Committee and the Film Club; Gort Vibes. All events are open to the public and free of charge.

Program of events :
Latin America Week Galway Events Program

Event schedule for further information on any event please contact Mick on 087-6124011 or the Trisha on 091 530590

Guatemala- Table Quiz Fundraiser
Wednesday Apr 14. Venue Kelly’s Bar- Upstairs@ 8 pm

This event is a fundraiser for; ‘G- Gap – Galway- Guatemala accompaniment programme.’ This is a new Galway based organisation that aims to encourage people to travel to Guatemala to act as Human Rights accompaniers alongside the locals . The organiser of this project will give a short talk and introduction to the situation on the ground in Guatemala and the political context.

‘Nicaragua- What Difference Can a Revolution Make?

Friday -16th Galway One World Centre 7pm.

The Sandinista Revolution (1979-90) ushered in an era of radical change in this Central American Republic with land reform, women’s rights and food sovereignty high on the agenda. A crippling trade embargo and a US-backed war of aggression broke the spirit of the revolution which was voted out of office in 1990. The country has since been plunged into deepening poverty while the return of Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, elected president in 2006, has seen a clampdown on democratic rights.

Becca Mohally Renk will present a 20 minutes slide show about her work with the Center for Development in Central America, based in Nicaragua. There will also be an overview of the political situation in that country and an opportunity to learn about work opportunities in that country. For further information about CDCA visit www.jhc-cdca.org or follow the blog at www.jhc-cdca.blogspot.com

Latin America One Day Film Festival

Saturday April 17th 12pm- 7 Pm

Venue: Huston School of Film & Digital Media, NUIG Galway.
Please note that the Huston School is located opposite Galway Cathedral and behind the Irish Centre for Human Rights. It will be signposted on the day.

12.15-1.30 pm: After the Revolution: Documentary

After The Revolution/Despues del Zapatismo Dir Leticia Agudo and Paul McGrath. Whackala films, 2009. Followed by discussion.

On January 1st 1994 armed rebels in Chiapas state, south east Mexico declared war on the Mexican state, demanding democracy, justice and freedom. They called themselves Zapatistas after Mexico’s celebrated independence hero, Emiliano Zapata. The government signed a peace accord with the rebels but then refused to implement the deal. At present, the Zapatistas live in their own self-governed communities, establishing their own educational, medical and legal system. Self styled ‘moody adolescent’ Leticia Agudo first traveled to Chiapas in 1989, dragged along by her anthropologist mother to study the locals. Agudo was shocked by the subservient position of indigenous women regarded as subhuman by the white skinned elite and second class citizens in their own communities. Agudo, a film-maker, returned in 2005, intrigued by the Zapatista’s promise of equality for women. “After the Revolution” explores the impact of this movement on the lives of indigenous women in Chiapas. The protagonists are from a Tojolobal family, whose women, inspired by the Zapatistas, tried to change their lives and help other indigenous women to do the same, working independently of the Zapatistas. Warning: This documentary features radical ideas which could damage your faith in parliamentary democracy. Also, no experts or anthropologists were used in the making of this film. The story is told through the voices and lives of the women at the centre of a remarkable experiment in participatory democracy.

2pm-4pm ‘Sin Nombre’ -Feature Film dealing with Gang Culture and Migration in Mexico.

Followed by a discussion on migrant rights in Mexico by Sarah Clancy who recently spent time volunteering in a shelter for migrants in the South of Mexico.

This gripping award-winning drama was written and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, with Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna as executive producers. At the 2009 Sundance Festival ‘Sin Nombre’ won the Dramatic Directing Award for director Fukunaga and the Excellence in Cinematography Award for Adriano Goldman. Seeking the promise of North America, a young Honduran woman, Sayra (Paulina Gaytan), joins her father and uncle on a dangerous odyssey to cross Mexico and reach the US. Along the way she encounters the notorious Maras gang, getting caught up in the desperate drama of former gang member El Casper (Edgar M. Flores), who is maneuvering to outrun his violent past and elude his unforgiving former associates. Together they must rely on faith, trust and street smarts if they are to survive their increasingly perilous journey towards a new life.

4.30 Pm Surprise Colombian Feature film!!

The program director of one of Colombia’s leading film festivals has selected a film for us especially for this event and we are still waiting with bated breath to see which one! He assures us that we will not be disappointed and says that the film he has sent is a fine example of the current trend in native Colombian filmmaking.

There will be a discussion following this film on the issue of ‘ Los Falsos Positivos’ ;this is a disturbing and outrageous practice whereby the Colombian Military and police forces who receive bonuses for every alleged FARC guerrilla that they hand over to the government either dead or alive have taken to killing street youths and dressing them in paramilitary attire in order to receive these bonuses. Michael MacCaughan last year, visited some of the communities most affected by this practice and interviewed the relatives of the missing and murdered youths.

Chew On This -workshop on food labeling

Tues Apr 20 1pm

Venue: Galway One World Centre Explore how what we eat affects our planet and its people. We will transform what we learn into a simple piece of art. If you can, bring a label from any type of food product, indicating price, quality assurance etc.

‘The People’s Cabaret’ Literature and Performance.

Tuesday April 20th@ 8pm Venue :Kelly’s Bar -Upstairs

Bring along your favourite piece of prose or poetry from Latin America and share it with others or simply turn up and tune in. Whether you fancy Roberto Bolano or Gioconda Belli, Eduardo Galeano or Julio Cortazar, Pablo Neruda or Isabel Allende, there is a tasty morsel to suit every palate.

9pm Haiti-Hopeless History

Presenter; Michael McCaughan, Latin America correspondent, Irish Times/Guardian, currently Outreach Officer at GOWC who visited Haiti in 1991 during the country’s brief democratic springtime when President Jean Bertrand Aristide was elected president. This fast paced presentation blends images and words in an overview of Haitian history, explaining how the country has been stripped of its wealth and overthrown by strangers for the past 200 years. The recent devastating earthquake may have been ‘natural’ but there is nothing natural about the foreign military and economic interventions which have left the country in debt and in misery.

“Food Security: The Impact of Global Trade”

April 22nd Amnesty Café, Middle St, @ 7pm.

Via Campesina: "Growing resistance - the fight to fix the food system"
Fergal Anderson, European Coordination of the international peasant movement Via Campesina, Brussels. Fergal is an activist from a rural community in Co. Galway. He visited Chiapas in 2006 following the Zapatista’s alternative nationwide grass roots campaign. This experience motivated him to study a Masters in Public Advocacy and Activism in Galway. He first came into contact with Via Campesina at the global justice mobilisation in Rostock, Germany in 2007 during the G8 meeting and became a volunteer interpreter at their meetings and mobilisations in Europe during 2008.
Food sovereignty places people and the environment at the centre of food production and distribution: “[it] is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.” (Nyeleni Declaration, March 2007). This year’s keynote speakers explore the social, economic and political forces which prevent communities from achieving food sovereignty. It will look at how the food producing capacity of entire regions has been undermined by market-led food production models.