International Participants in Caravan 1

International Participants in Caravan 1

I do not have an exact count, but it seemed about twenty persons from foreign countries, including myself, joined Caravan 1. There were 2 young members of the Inuit First Nations People in Igaluit, Nunavut, far north Canada as they described to me, including Albert Netser. THey attended as memebers of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, an incredible union that does international solidarity work as well. ; Luke, an astronomer from a group called UNAH originally from France living now in Mexico City; a large group from the progressive Council of Canadians in Ottawa, Canada currently fighting a yet worse version of a NAFTA between Canada and Europe as well as genetically modified salmon, led by Brent Patterson, their Director of Campaigns and Communications; Richard Girard, Researcher, and Daniel Cayley Daoust from the Polaris Institute in Ottawa, Canada, an organization that reports on corporate activities; Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau, Outreach and Parternship Coordinator, from Why Hunger; many members including their leader, Louisa who had lived in Mexico, of the Public Service Alliance of Canada; a member of FATO Brazil; two members of ASUD in Rome; someone from the Observatorio de la Deuda en la Gloablaizacion (ODG) in Spain and Randy Jasper and myself from Family Farm Defenders. I was sponsored partially by the Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural and am member of their delegation. Randy was sponsored by the National Family Farm Coalition. Randy is a grain and bean farmer, former dairy farmer from Wisconsin. I estimate about one fourth of us were women. I would also estimate that only about three of us were people of color or from groups historically oppressed in their countries. I would guess that most of the group were in their twenteis or early thirties but there were a few more mature members as well including myself and Randy.