Poetry in Motion

Change is in the air, the answer is (still) blowing in the wind, and we are the ones blowing! While global finance is melting down, increasingly stronger voices are rising, along with concrete actions, to push those changes in the right direction. The audacity of hope appears to be prevailing. In fact, we were going to call this editorial “Winds of Change” when one of the early key Alliance topics cropped up in our memory: setting the Alliance in motion.

From thinking to action

Rewind to the mid-1990s: the Platform for a Responsible and United World had been drafted, was in circulation and was being signed while the first international workshops were being set up to start work on proposals for what to change and how, to prevent humankind from self-destructing. “Setting the Alliance in Motion” was the buzzword and produced, over the years, complex and user-friendly multi-lingual communication and facilitation systems based both on the Internet and on face-to-face meetings intended to build cross-cultural “collective intelligence” to formulate action proposals in every imaginable area. The Proposal Papers were completed by December 2001. By that time, countless groups were in activity, our thinking and methods had spread to other spheres and movements, the Alliance was in motion.

Life is movement

Behind these rather intellectual considerations lies a beautiful, magic, moving reality: the poetry of life. In the midst of the current commotion, our contribution still continues to be one of helping to generate those links that are the fabric of our future, living world. So for this update of the Alliance Web site, a (very) early Ally tells of how he has moved on and what, of the Alliance, he has taken elsewhere. As an echo to his work with women, we selected news sent to us from Brazil on how women are mobilized to become stronger in their efforts for a fairer system. As you will see from the Briefs, citizen forums have become a constant: you may even wish to attend one in your area!

Another way to start into the world from the Alliance is shown by our latest Dossier, Traversées: Crossing Paths for a New World. An amazing journey to meet the world and build futures with others. If you don’t have four years to spare for a journey such as this, we hope you have time to enjoy, here, Traversées’s uplifting adventures.

Helping a world community to emerge

“Few and far between” might however be a good description of our newsletters of late. There’s a reason. We too are in the turmoil of change: a deep transformation of the Alliance 21 Web site is still on the agenda… and will be for some time to come. Our expected outcome will have turned this Web site into a grand gateway for alliances, a place where it will be easier for you to come and learn of others’ activities, find partners the world over for your own, where you will be easily directed to like-minded human and intellectual resources. We are working hard on that now, and while we do, we shall continue to update the current version of the Web site… You might like to know that between newsletters, you can also be informed of new content as soon as it is published by using an RSS feed.

Welcome to the spotlight

Website content is based on your news, and we are looking forward to it. We do need you to apply a few guidelines: the article should be in keeping with Alliance goals and 500 words at most! If you are or have been an Ally, feel free to tell us what you have been up to by contributing to Allies Speaking. If you are a partner organization or project, such as Empowerment and Migration or the Forum for a new World Governance, do let the rest of us know.

If you have information to circulate, you can also do so by subscribing to the Alliance’s general forum, where you can also take up discussions with other members of the forum. Please, however, apply the forum participation rules, otherwise your messages will be rejected.

There is so much happening in so many places!

As ever, you have our Web site’s pick of articles fed into it from other Web sites (check out the bottom of the page here), and the latest news from our partners here so read on ...