Christchurch woman, Carolyn Brown, from New Internationalist magazine will be travelling to the 5th World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in late January.

Seen as an alternative to the World Trade Organisation and politician heavy Earth Summits, the WSF and International Council, is a meeting of Non Governmental organisations, social movements and individuals from over a hundred countries. In 2003 there were over 100,000 participants and Carolyn is excited at the prospect of meeting so many different people and promoting the “Kiwi way of doing things”.

Invited to attend by New Internationalist, the multi-award winning, not for profit magazine published by a co-operative in the UK, Carolyn has a strong background and knowledge of development issues and fair trade.

“ I have been working in this area both voluntarily and as a career for some time now and have attended a number of different forums here in NZ, but this is going to be huge! It will be an amazing opportunity to hear about the efforts of ordinary people in areas such as Human Rights, the Environment and Social Justice and I will definitely be discussing the generosity of New Zealanders in times of crisis and what challenges we face in society here.”

For further information or to organise an interview with Carolyn about her experiences at the World Social Forum please contact the New Zealand office of New Internationalist on

e-mail newint@chch.planet.org.nz

Carolyn will be leaving the country on the 20th January returning 10th February 2005

For more information on the WSF and New Internationalist see http://www.worldsocialforum.org or http://www.newint.org

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