RAJ PATEL: "Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System"

Wednesday, April 30th

City Council Chambers (411 Main Street)

Raj Patel's new book is a startling expose of the global food system and how activists are gaining ground against its corporate control. Raj Patel is a former policy analyst for Food First, a leading food think tank, and a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies. He has written for the Los Angeles Times and The Guardian, and although he has worked for the World Bank, WTO, and the UN, he's also been tear-gassed on four continents protesting them.

DOCUMENTARY FILM SHOWING: Street Fight

Sunday, April 27th

Chico Peace and Justice Center (526 Broadway)

Academy Award Nominated Street Fight chronicles the bare-knuckles race for Mayor of Newark, N.J. between Cory Booker, a 32-year-old Rhodes Scholar/Yale Law School grad, and Sharpe James, the four-term incumbent and undisputed champion of New Jersey politics.

Street Fight tells a gripping story of the underbelly of democracy where elections are not about spin-doctors, media consultants, or photo ops. In Newark, we discover, elections are won and lost in the streets.

For more information about this documentary, click here.

HUNGRY FOR JUSTICE - Close the SOA Fast!

April 23-25

Downtown City Plaza (4th Street between Broadway & Main)

1,000 Grandmothers fasted to close the School of the Americas. The SOA, also known as the "School of the Assassins", is a U.S. funded institute that trains South American soldiers in brutal counter-insurgency tactics. It must be closed down forever.

The three-day fast schedule included:

Wednesday, April 23rd: Fasting 10am-3pm

Thursday, April 24th: Fasting and Granny Caravan and "Rock In" at Rep. Herger's office

Friday, April 25th: Fasting 10am-3pm

FREE MEDIA TRAINING FOR ACTIVISTS - 4 Part Workshop

Thursdays, April 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th at 6:30-9:30

Chico Peace and Justice Center (526 Broadway)

The media can be a powerful tool if you know how to use it! Dilia Loe, long-time community organizer, offered free media training every Thursday night in April to assist activists and organizations to use the media effectively!

The topics for the trainings included:

April 3rd - Who is the media?

April 10th - Getting in touch with the Media: Who to call, how to sell your story & interview strategies

April 17th - Working with small and niche markets, and coordinating media efforts

April 24th - Message development

You can come to any or all of the trainings. To reserve your space, call us at (530) 893-9078 or email newsletter@chico-peace.org.

MARISA HANDLER: "Loyalty to the Sky: Notes from an Activist"

Monday, April 21st

Chico Peace and Justice Center (526 Broadway)

Marisa Handler is a writer, activist, and singer-songwriter living in San Francisco. She has worked as an organizer in the global justice and peace movements, both outside of institutions and with the Tikkun Community, Direct Action to Stop the War, and United for Peace and Justice. She speaks about social change all over the country, integrating song into her presentations, and has traveled the world writing about sociopolitics and globalization.

Marisa's first book, Loyal to the Sky is a memoir, moving from Marisa's childhood home in apartheid South Africa to Israel, India, Nepal, Ecuador, Peru, and all over the United States. It offers a rare and revealing glimpse inside the global justice movement, and describes how she came to advocate an activism grounded in the principles of interconnection and nonviolence as the best means for building the world we wish to see.

Chico MUSIC FOR PEACE FESTIVAL

Saturday, April 19th

Chico Downtown Plaza

Organized by TerraKarma, the Music for Peace Festival was a fun gathering for peace. Several local bands performed: Alli Battaglia & the Musica lBrewing Company, Serenity, Whipple, Gordy-O banjo man, Jeff Pershing Band, Omm, John Staedler, TerraKarma, the Resonators, & DJ X from KZFR's Chico Butter Show.