Friends and comrades
We are writing to invite you to the first World Forum of Applied Knowledge (WFAN) that will take place in Valparaiso, Chile from July 21st to 24th, 2008. It will be an opportunity to exchange practical experiences for the construction of an alternative society.
The forum will be an exchange of practices and knowledge—rational, technical, and ancestral—applicable to the processes of social self-organization and communitarian life. These practices use human, material, cultural, spiritual and natural resources from each locality. The highest form of social self-organization that we know so far is the autonomous municipality. Here, the resources and initiatives of a locality or of various localities are articulated for self-government and the development of economic activities and services that have normally been the service of the state—an institution that, up to this point, has not satisfied the needs of the population. For that reason, the autonomous municipality will deservedly be one of the Forum’s themes.
The World Forum of Applied Knowledge will work on the basis of simultaneous disciplinary congresses that will dedicated their efforts during one or two days to the creation of manuals for immediate realization in these areas of knowledge directed to communitarian activity of the residents of a locality.
There will be one or two days of simultaneous congresses in different areas—fields that are normally directed by the academy and institutions oriented towards the market and the state. This Forum aspires to direct its functions toward the process of autonomous social self-organization and self-management: to construction today, not tomorrow, of an alternative society. Different topics can be seen in the attached flier; other areas of particular interest can be proposed as well.
Later there will be a day for interdisciplinary meetings; for example, of alternative energy with engineering for self-management. Finally there will be a multidisciplinary meeting of reflection on the interaction of all the disciplines, aspects of life, and applied knowledge.
Natural and nutritious food will be provided. Housing will be in a classroom; please bring a sleeping bag or solicit the list of hostels. As well, if you wish, you can stay and participate in the activities of a social collective in one of Valparaiso’s hills.
See our website for a flier for distribution and links to more information.
Signed, Scott, Enric, Jaime
http://foromundial.ulibre.org/home.html