CASC Programs, Partners, and Projects
CASC has several ongoing projects working in solidarity with communities and popular movements in Latin America. All CASC projects welcome new ideas, energy, and volunteers. Please contact us for information on how to get involved!
Current
Awareness and Education
CASC builds engagement around popular movements in Latin America through sponsoring presenters and providing public events focused on education, awareness raising, and mobilization.
Projects include:
- For over thirty years, CASC has presented a regular event, Cafe Simpatico, currently held the last Friday of each month (minus December, June, July, and August).
- CASC also co-sponsors Victoria-area events with other organizations.
Disaster Solidarity
Naomi Klein showed in The Shock Doctrine how governments and corporations can exploit so called natural disasters and other collective shocks to impose sweeping changes on reeling populations. Against such “disaster capitalism”, CASC works through existing links with popular organizations on the ground to provide prompt, direct, and appropriate support to impacted communities.
Primary contact:
- Nancy McLeod.
Activities include:
- In 2013, CASC held a musical fundraiser in response to Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. All funds raised were channelled through the [NAME OF ORGANIZATION?}.
- [OTHERS]
Support to political prisoners
CASC works in solidarity with political prisoners in Latin America with a special focus on female political prisoners and Colombia. This work grows out of support to political prisoner Liliany Obando, falsely imprisoned on conspiracy charges related to her work in labour organizing.
Activities include:
- CASC members have provided support to Liliany Obando, including letter writing and accompaniment for Liliany and her family.
Contact:
- Kevin Neish
- Teresa Wolfwood
Art and Solidarity
Recognizing the key role of art and artists in social movements, CASC
Activities include:
- The monthly Cafe Simpatico begins with a half-hour community-building singalong in Spanish and English led by a spirited team of singers and musicians and featuring a growing repertoire of songs in the CASC songbook.
- CASC hosted the opening of the Communities in Resistance arts project—see “Mining community support” Olive borrowed a fence hole borer that we’re going to try out. (delete)
- In 2014, CASC mounted an exhibit of revolutionary posters from Latin America, sharing an important history of artistic expression and radical mobilization.
- Other recent arts-related events include the premiere of Nedjo Rogers’ one-person play “The Trios-Rivieres Tales” and the launch for Theresa Wolfwood’s poetry book Love and Resistance.(spelling)
Contact:
- Deirdre Kelly
Mining community support
CASC collaborates with the Victoria-based Mining Justice Action Committee (MJAC) to support impacted communities and hold Canadian mining companies to account for their actions in Latin America and around the world.
Activities include:
- CASC hosted the opening of the MJAC art exhibit and poetry performance project Communities in Resistance, recognizing in artistic form communities resisting Canadian mining corporations.
Contact:
- Cory Greenlees
Cafe Simpatico coffee project
CASC sells fair trade, shade grown coffee produced by the Carlos Díaz Cajina cooperative on the island of Omotepe, Nicaragua. Cafe Simpatico provides the main source of funds for CASC solidarity work.
Contact:
- Tim Boultbee, Theresa Wolfwood
Enrique Torres Foundation
CASC works in partnership with the Enrique Torres Foundation providing support to labour activists in Guatemala. Founded by the children of Enrique Torres to continue his work after he was killed in political violence, the Foundation channels legal assistance in support of workers rights.
Activities include:
- In 2014, CASC provided [DESCRIBE SUPPORT GIVEN].
Contact:
- Theresa Wolfwood
HIJOS Guatemala
Founded by children of parents who were disappeared in political voilence, HIJOS (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice, against Oblivion and Silence) Guatemala uses political art and mobilization to work for memory and positive change. Following a visit to Victoria by HIJOS activist Wendy Mendez, CASC works in support of HIJOS work in Guatemala.
Contact:
- Nedjo Rogers, Theresa Wolfwood
Past
Support to El Milagro, El Salvador
CASC has provided several rounds of support to the community of El Milagro, El Salvador, including help for building a clinic and a chicken-raising project. CASC has also provided funds for a youth centre in another community.