Keynote Speakers at the Sydney Social Forum

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AT SSF 2003

DAVID BARSAMIAN

Award-winning director of Alternative Radio in the US. AR presents information and perspectives that are ignored or distorted in the corporate-controlled media. The program is broadcast on more than 125 public radio stations around the world.

Exclusive to community radio stations, who receive it free of charge, the weekly, award winning series features speakers like John Pilger, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Helen Caldicott, Arundhuti Roy, Tariq Ali and many more whose voices are usually excluded from mainstream media commentary and analysis of events. Each one hour program features the speaker unedited and uninterrupted. Alternative Radio believes that radio audiences are tired of the five second sound bite (or as Ralph Nader says "sound bark") and each week offers access to some of the worlds most active and progressive minds.

Alternative Radio is an independent service and relies solely on the sales of programs on CD, cassette or as transcripts. A catalogue of programs available in Australia is available by calling (03) 5134 8556. There is only one alternative to the monotony, Alternative Radio.

David has co-authored a number of books with eminent scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Arundhati Roy.

NICOLA BULLARD

Deputy-director of Focus on the Global South, an international policy research and advocacy organisation based in Bangkok which campaigns on the impacts of economic and trade liberalisation, reform of the international financial architecture and the role of international financial institutions.

Focus aims to consciously and consistently articulate, link and develop greater coherence between local community-based and national, regional and global paradigms of change. Focus on the Global South strives to create a distinct and cogent link between development at the grassroots and the "macro" levels.

Nicola is co-author along with Walden Bello of "Global Finance: New Thinking on Regulating Speculative Capital Markets".

ARIEL GUIDES

Ariels is a representative from BMP (Solidarity of Filipino Workers), the largest trade union congress in the Philippines, and head of the Freedom from Hunger Coalition in Negros, covering 22,000 sugarworkers across 12 cities and towns.

Established in 1946, Freedom from Hunger is recognised for fighting hunger with innovative self-help programs. It began as Meals for Millions, the organization that developed and introduced Multi-Purpose Food, a high-protein powdered food supplement still used today in relief efforts around the world. In the 1970s, it shifted its focus to implementing Applied Nutrition Programs, focusing almost exclusively on the health and nutrition of mothers and children. In 1988, Freedom from Hunger developed the world's first integrated microcredit/health and nutrition education program. Today, their Credit with Education program is serving over 269,000 families in some of the poorest countries on earth.

Ariel is also head of the secretariat of Task Force World Food Day, an umbrella of different NGO's and political blocks in Negros, and a member of the technical working group of Sugar Alliance in Negros island comprising of 36 agrarian reform communities in Negros.