MOJA

TAP on TAPAS:

The Alternatives Project

WEBINAR: There are Plenty of Alternatives!

February 3

10:30 EST / 15:30 GMT-UTC

Zoom Meeting (2 hours) Translation in French and Spanish

REGISTRATION REQUIRED:

https://umd.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYud-2qrjovHtHFgPhnZ6XpBuWruHXNklId

We live on a bountiful planet filled with extraordinary human beings but facing some truly existential crises – COVID, climate change and environmental destruction, virulent poverty and inequality, rampant racism and sexism, and widespread war and conflict, to name some. These crises are systemic, built into structures of capitalism, patriarchy, racism, ableism, and more. But this is not a time for despair, this is a time for alternatives! Contrary to Margaret Thatcher's TINA, There is No Alternative, David Bollier coined the acronym TAPAS, There are Plenty of Alternatives. In this webinar, we at The Alternatives Project bring together five other organizations to share, celebrate, and discuss their outstanding work in examining, fostering, and enhancing global efforts to find education, social, economic, and political alternatives to transform dysfunctional and destructive existing systems. PLEASE JOIN US!

CHAIR AND PANELIST

CAROL ANNE SPREEN | THE ALTERNATIVES PROJECT

TAP is a diverse, transnational collective of progressive academics, union members, civil society activists, and social movement participants concerned with building a global collective critical voice oriented towards education and societal transformation.

PANELISTS

FRANCO AUGUSTO | REEVO

REEVO is an international collective project that since 2012 promotes the collaborative construction of knowledge and networks about alternatives to learning and unconventional educational experiences from a critical, collaborative, open, and non-commercial perspective.

UDI MANDEL | ECOVERSITIES

Ecoversities is about learners and communities reclaiming diverse knowledges, relationships, and imaginations to design new approaches to higher education.

AMANDA JANOO | WEAll WELLBEING ECONOMY ALLIANCE

WEAll is a collaboration of organizations, alliances, movements, and individuals working towards a well-being economy, delivering human and ecological well-being.

GAR ALPEROVITZ | THE NEXT SYSTEM PROJECT

The Next System Project is an initiative of The Democracy Collaborative aimed at bold thinking and action to address the systemic challenges we face now and in coming decades, functioning as a research and development lab for political-economic alternatives.

ASHISH KOTHARI | GLOBAL TAPESTRY OF ALTERNATIVES

The Global Tapestry of Alternatives seeks to build bridges between networks of Alternatives around the globe and promote the creation of new processes of confluence.

Theme: Workers and the Law: Labour Market Regulations and Inequality

Are present day labour market institutions and representative organisations fit for purpose and can they adequately address the challenges faced by workers within the current regulatory framework?

Ditsela host its first Online National Labour Law Symposium in partnership with the CENTROW (Centre for Transformative regulation of Work) and the CCMA. This symposium will focus on the recent Labour Law Amendments, how it affects workers in the workplace, their social welfare and in their own communities. It will also provide a learning space for sharing various experiences.

The Objectives and Target Audience of the symposium

This symposium provides a useful opportunity to share the research that has been undertaken on the impact of the post 2007 LRA. It will also provide a platform for the voice of workers on their workplace experiences regarding these amendments.

The key objectives of the symposium are:

• To provide a forum for the exchange of information and experiences to shop stewards and organisers on the latest amendments to the LRA post 2007, and for the exchange of information to workers in the informal economy on the latest progress on the implementation of R204 in South Africa;
• To build the capacity of shop stewards, worker leaders in MBOs of workers in the informal economy, and organisers to defend and advance the rights of workers in the workplace; and
• To forge stronger unity and solidarity between worker leaders in the formal and informal economy across their different employment relationships.

Programme

Day One: Inputs by speakers on current labour market regulation and inequality, engagement with key note address / discussion on present day challenges confronting the organisation of formal and informal workers and the steps to build unity between these workers.

Day Two: Session of commissions and plenary discussion.

MOJA invites adult educators to a conversation with Astrid von Kotze, adult educator and activist. Astrid is and education activist working with organisations and people in poor working class communities in/around Cape Town, South Africa. Until 2009, she was Professor of Adult Education and Community Development at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, subsequently professor emerita at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Astrid has been deeply involved in cultural activism, and published widely on popular education, health and sustainable livelihood security.

In the conversation with Astrid, we will focus on the topic of Adult Education for Resilience? COVID-19-induced pondering for practice.

Resilience has become a buzzword ‘touted as a protective talisman against the effects of trauma, which individuals, communities and whole economies are told to cultivate. ‘ (Saner 2020) It has taken on the quality of moral virtue with ‘resourcefulness’ reframed as praise for one’s ability to continually adapt (Ames & Greer 2021). In this way, resilience is akin to the aspiration for education for ‘sustainable development’, a continuation of the same-old, with slight adjustments.

The questions are: what does ‘resilience’ mean? Should adult education go with the same-old? What are community/adult educators’ assumptions, and how do they relate to the realities of learner / participants on the ground? What ideas should be dropped, and what imaginings be taken on now, for the future? What are new ways of shaping adults educating and learning, in a (post-) Covid-era?

This webinar will critically examine notions of ‘resilience’, spotlight some of our assumptions about ALE, and propose a a life-affirming adult education for the future.

On 12 and 13 October 2021, EPALE is hosting its annual Community Conference, which will be held entirely online. The conference will provide an opportunity to discuss how adult education and learning can help reshape our society, promoting inclusive and sustainable models.

The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated vulnerabilities in our globalised and interconnected world, with profound and long-lasting effects. Fast-paced changes on multiple levels – digital, demographic, and environmental – have been the norm in recent times. In this context, the conference revolves around the concept of transition. Transitions are full of uncertainty and instability, but being inherently transformative, they also provide an extraordinary opportunity to sketch out new models, paying particular attention to the challenge of not leaving anyone behind.

The conference’s plenary sessions (public events available to view via the EPALE platform) will be split across two days.

But the conference doesn't end here!

Far from it! The following week, on the 18 and 19 October, the conference will continue, opening the stage for collaborative discussions. Participants will have the opportunity to have their say, taking part in four participatory workshops to be attended upon registration.

The EPALE Community Conference will also host 8 national panels to allow participants to deepen and discuss national priorities and practices… in national languages.

The full agenda will be available soon on this page.

TOPIC: Neville Alexander and the Struggle for Education, Nation-Building and Liberation

Prof Salim Vally - Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg; Director: Centre for Education Rights and Transformation; NRF SARChi Chair in Community, Adult and Workers Education

Mr Enver Motala - Research Associates Nelson Mandela University

It is with great honor that we invite educators, activists, environmentalists, students to join us in the 4th edition of this free course in defense of public education, public and free healthcare systems, and social rights for all. Let's celebrate the Centenary of Paulo Freire denouncing the necrophilic politics across the globe and announcing concrete possibilities of transformation. The course purpose is to discuss pedagogical practices in Environmental Education in formal and non-formal contexts, emerging from popular struggles, social movements, traditional populations, indigenous peoples and groups in situations of socio-environmental vulnerability...

Access the link on Google Chrome and activate the automatic translations for English version!

Dates: 09/25 to 10/30

Synchronous activities: 09/25; 10/02; 10/09; 10/16; 10/23; 10/30 - (6 Saturdays). 3:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. (Eastern time)

Texts and videos will be available in Portuguese, Spanish and English.

The synchronous activities will be broadcast on YouTube in Portuguese language, and subsequently will be inserted English and Spanish subtitles.

https://youtube.com/channel/UCLu5JM46V79_qSapQ7Hsu1A

Climate justice, including social, gender and economic justice, is attained by foregrounding the needs and interests of the people who have contributed least to climate catastrophes yet are most affected by them. Due to unequal patriarchal divisions of labour and exploitative practices, the majority of women around the world carry primary responsibility for putting food on the table and taking care of ecosystems, families and communities. Ecological breakdown, capitalism and patriarchy are closely inter-linked and undergird the environmental catastrophe that is unfolding. Ecofeminism, a discourse that began in the late 1980s, remains a useful theoretical framework because it refuses to separate entangled dimensions of life. It presents a change in paradigm from separation to interconnectedness, from the mechanistic and reductionist to the relational and holistic. This webinar will explore ecofeminism – its theory and practice - and in particular, its application to the principles and practices of a life-affirming ALE.

This year is the 100th anniversary of Paulo Freire's birth, and we are marking it with an online conference in October 2021. This will be an opportunity for academics, practitioners and activists to share their ideas, learning and practice with their peers.