Background
The Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC) is a Canada wide youth environmental organization. Since its inception in 1996, SYC has worked extensively toward raising awareness around critical social and environmental issues. This summer SYC has it sights set on the upcoming World Trade Organization negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. As the WTO launches a new round of negotiations, agricultural workers around the world continue to struggle with the impacts of trade liberalization on food production. With agriculture as one of the big issues on the table for the Cancun round, it is critical to raise awareness about the social and ecological consequences of continued liberalization of trade in food production on the world’s farmers, and the planet.
Youth from across Canada will travel south to Cancun on their bicycles, drawing together and bringing with them information and stories of agricultural struggles experienced in North America. They will attempt to connect real life hardships to decisions being made by the WTO in Cancun.
Goals and Objectives
The Sierra Youth Coalition’s Deconstructing Dinner campaign aims to provide information dissemination around the complexities of the WTO Trade Negotiations to communities across North America with a specific focus around trade, agriculture and migrant farm workers. At the same time, SYC will provide a sustainable means of transportation for North American Activists to attend the WTO Trade Negotiation to be held this September in Cancun, Mexico. Our objectives are therefore to:
- Raise awareness in North American communities around the social and ecological impacts of trade liberalization in order to create a forum for a discussion on alternatives such as local agriculture, fair trade and alternative forms of entrepreneurship.
- To engage in a public discussion around the impacts of WTO policy on agricultural workers of Mexico and the subsequent impacts of migratory farmers struggles in North American communities.
- Inform and educate North American communities about how fair trade and local agricultural systems contribution to sustainable development, poverty alleviation, reduced hunger and women's empowerment.