2. THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY...AND NATIONALLY...AND
INTERNATIONALLY...
Some Concrete Ideas:
• ECCO, the European Council of
Conscripts Organisations, calls for the banning of racism
in all armed forces in their "European Social Charter
for Conscripts".
• The European Playworkers Association
organised a week of Intercultural Community Action in the
Karolinenviertel of Hamburg. International volunteers helped
to organise a festival, childrens' activities, roundtables
between local people and visiting Roma gypsies.
• Member organisations of the ÖBJR
(Austrian Youth Council) were prominent in the launch of
an umbrella body (SOS Mitmensch) to promote tolerance. SOS
Mitmensch held the largest demonstration - Lichtermeer -
for over 50 years in Vienna, January 1993.
• BIT, the Progressive Youth Organisation,
works with the Martin Luther King Egyseült in Budapest
to collate and publish a diary of racist attacks on foreign
students.
• The youth section of the European
Trade Union Confederation organised runners to carry the
"Torch of Tolerance" from different starting points
in Europe. They started at the ETUC Youth General Assembly
in Rome, March 1993 and met at Maastricht in April.
• Young socialists from Italy (Sinistra
Giovanile nel PDS) and Germany (Jusos in der SPD) combined
to produce bi-lingual anti-racist material, 1992.
• UNITED for Intercultural Action,
a network against nationalism, racism, fascism and in support
of migrants and refugees, published the first edition of
the "Calendar of Internationalism", February 1993.
The Calendar is published regularly and sent to over 1400
relevant organisations. Eleven years later, at the time
of preparing this internet version of ALIEN 93, the 68th
edition of the Calendar of Internationalism was sent out!
And, of course, nowadays its possible to obtain the information
through their website: www.unitedagainstracism.org
• A local
youth association in El Entegro, Spain (Associación
Cultural Linares) has is making a patchwork of decorated
cloth squares from youth organisations in Spain and the
rest of Europe. The theme of the patchwork is "La juventud
contra el racismo en Europa"; tr: youth against racism
in Europe.
There are further examples of activities that young people
have taken in Compass. For example, you will find how young
people in Copenhagen developed a derelict, inner-city site
into a community garden in "Garden
in a night". A second example is the activity,
"Beware
we are watching", which describes the
Eastern European Clean Clothes Campaign.
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