Organizers from Africa Indymedia and World Social Forum Begin Cooperation

Members of the Communications Commission of the World Social Forum met with the Africa Indypendent Media Center participants at the convergence space this evening, February 5, 2011.

Historically, both the WSF and IMC emerged from similar movements against neoliberal globalization by creating participatory structures both around organizing mass movements towards alternatives and in the process actually create those alternatives. In the case of media and communications, IMCs have been sucessful at bringing independent journalists, activists, and community members together to create convergence spaces where cooperation and sharing resources generates a more authentic interpretation of alter-globalization protests and events.

Over the last decade, IMCs have converged around the world for events such as the World Social Forum. For the the WSF 2011, Africa IMCs are converging for the fourth time. The meeting held jointly by the IMC and WSF generated concrete proposals for cooperation over the 6 days of the forum event.

Africa-IMC and WSF Communications Commission will:

• organize coverage based on the forum's thematic axis.
• utilize similar working spaces such as the IMC house and Alternative Media Center at the University.
• caucus for participation in an assembly on communications.
• use/create a common website and send out texts to other media lists.
• create small affinity groups based on media to cover the forum.
• get translation help on written articles or transcriptions.
• publish short documentation on how to use the imc-africa.mayfirst.org website.
• create fliers to announce the mission and practical information about the IMC.
• share and publish articles on all website using syndication or duplicate publishing.
• use WSFTV.net and Forum de Radios to publish multimedia.
• for the opening march, form a group of communicators, make our presence visible with a banner, face paint, or t-shirt.
• meet on the day of the opening march at 11:00 am to organize and discuss a plan of action.
• debrief the process of the forum together between February 11 - 13.