4th European Social Forum in Athens, May 2006 We arrive in Athens on Wednesday, and the forum is to begin only the next day. We find a place to stay after an unsuccessful search for camping space near the forum area. Afterwards, Athens is ours to discover. This city is like an enlarged Aegean town, but the different alphabet and the unusual street names, like Sophocles or Zeus, mark the difference from the eastern side of the Aegean. As we discuss how similar Athens is to what we have back home, we work on to finalize our testimony. The next day the migration axis will be held, and we will be there to explain the conditions regarding refugees in Turkey. We brush up the speech, drop by the opening concert of the forum, and then return to the hostel for a good night’s sleep. The next day we need to wake up early to go to the forum area.
Another Africa is Possible! The Malian capital of Bamako opened its doors to the 6th World Social Forum (WSF) on January 19th 2006, with a passionate call for justice in all walks of life. This year, the WSF is polycentric, with three different forums in three different cities of the South: Bamako, Caracas and Karachi. The WSF which gathers activists around the world with the slogan “Another World is Possible” attracted around 25.000 representatives of civil society organizations and social movements from across the world to Bamako.
Impressions from the 5th World Social Forum While in the midst of the cold air of Davos, the grand powers of the world were discussing behind the doors as they have been doing for many years; in Brazil, kilometers south from Switzerland, ‘another grand power’ which is composed of hundreds of thousands of people, were on the streets for ‘another world’, walking towards ‘another coastline’. The fifth edition of World Social Forum was held between 26th and 31st of January 2005, in this coastline, which was constructed along the Guaiba River, on the coast of Porto Alegre. 155 thousands of people, 35 thousands being young people, participated in the forum from 135 countries all around the world. In the forum, which was composed of 11 thematic terrains, 2800 volunteers worked and there were 2500 events which produced more than 360 proposals.
