[CIMC-working] (IMC Brazil funding request) Fwd: [Imc-finance] Funding requests by IMC Brazil

[Chris Kaihatsu]

-- Forwarded Message --

Two separate funding requests, both of them directly related to World
Social Forum 2003. We will be waiting for two replies from you, one for
each proposal.

Thank you,
Luis,
Liason for CMI Belo Horizonte, Brasil.

P.S.: Should I send the proposal on plain text in addition to this html
version?

______________________________________


POSTED: [Friday, January 3, 2003] by IMC Brazil (brazil@indymedia.org)
DISCUSSION PERIOD: [January 3 to January 17]
DECISION DEADLINE: [January 17]; Noon GMT

Summary:

Funding request to support the last big international coverage of the
World Social Forum by Indymedia and to support the first face-to-face
meeting of all six collectives of IMC Brazil.


Proposal:

In order to accomplish a national IMC Brazil meeting, which would bring
together the six IMC Brazil collectives (Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza,
Goi=E2nia, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and S=E3o Paulo), and to support the
Indymedia coverage of the World Social Forum 2003 by all present IMCs, we
request this financial aid. This meeting would be extremely important for
the IMC Brazil organization and for the sharing of experiences between the
50 volunteers or more that intend to attend the WSF in January. Besides,
the WSF represents a unique opportunity to connect IMCistas from several
different countries, as well as social movements and activists from all
over the world, making it a singular event and the perfect opportunity for
a regional meeting. However, this time IMC Brazil has been working on the
preparations for this coverage since early December. We intend not only to
cover the events happening at the WSF and at the parallel Forums, but also
to offer a space for all Indymedia volunteers where they could work
together as a team. A real Indypendent Media Center.

Brief historic about IMC Brazil:
IMC Brazil was created on December of 2000. At first, there was only one
collective on the whole country, based in the city of S=E3o Paulo. This
collective was responsible for the website and for several local projects.
By 2001, more volunteers appeared in another cities, and started to
develop some local projects and to contribute for the growth of IMC Brazil
Network. After that, by the beginning of 2002, just after the WSF 2002,
these initiatives resulted in the formation of five new local collectives
in the cities of Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza, Goi=E2nia, Porto Alegre and Rio
de Janeiro. In a short period of time, the six collectives approved an
organizational proposal for the IMC Brazil Network. With this proposal,
IMC Brazil was able to decentralize itself and the website passed to be
administrated by volunteers from all six collectives, forming an national
editorial team. Since this decentralization process, each collective has
been developing local projects in their own cities, mostly to take
Indymedia off the internet.

The organizational proposal mentioned above can be found here: (in pt)
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/RedeCMIBrasil

Due to our country size, this organizational proposal was created and
based only on internet communication. Brazil is a country of continental
extension, and because of that the costs of transportation, feeding and
housing do not allow us to have frequent national face-to-face meetings.
In fact, the six collectives could never have a real meeting due to these
high costs. To illustrate that, the distance between the most northern
collective (Fortaleza) and the most southern (Porto Alegre), is 4.174 km
(approximately 2.590 miles).

Still, with this organizational proposal, we managed to keep the website
functioning and maintain a certain cohesion between the activities of the
brazilian collectives. However, it's undeniable that virtual communication
limits our discussions, our actions as IMC Brazil and the organized growth
of the IMC Brazil Network. This last point is specially important at the
moment, once three other cities and one state have showed interest in
creating local collectives, like the city of Salvador and the state of
Paran=E1, for example. With that growth possibility in such a short period
of time and so that we can go even further in the organization we reached
in 2002, we find extremely important to hold a regional meeting between
our six collectives.


About World Social Forum:
The World Social Forum is a meeting of Movements, Unions, NGOs, Left
Political Parties, and activists which will happen from January 23-28 of
2003 in Porto Alegre, south of Brazil. It is a meeting parallel to and
questioning the World Economic Forum, which happens at the same time in
the city of Davos, on Switzerland. Parallel to the World Social Forum,
there will be alternative activities taking place. Among them are the
Anarchist Journeys, the Meeting of Autonomous Movements and the Hub Camp.

You can find more information about WSF at the website: (in pt, es, en,
fr)
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br


Budget Breakdown:

We ask for US$3,630.00. This amount would be used as described on the five
points bellow.

1. Transportation:
Bus tickets for nine volunteers who depend on this funding. Three from
Belo Horizonte, two from Fortaleza, three from Rio de Janeiro and one from
S=E3o Paulo.

   TOTAL: US$400.00

2. Feeding:
Feeding for twenty two volunteers for about 10 days. This funding would
pay for the feeding of three volunteers from Belo Horizonte, three from
Fortaleza, fifteen from Goi=E2nia and one volunteer from S=E3o Paulo.

   TOTAL: US$170.00

3. Housing:
We want to rent two floors of a big building next to the Youth camp, where
all Indymedia volunteers from all over the world could stay. The two
floors are quite big, we believe that at least 50 people would be able to
sleep on each one of them. The landlord decided to charge separately for
each person who would stay there, so each one would have to pay US$3 a
day, what is quite cheap. However, we will only be able to offer this deal
to the IMCistas if we get this funding. The agreement with the landlord
was that we would pay for 50 people before the WSF begins and then the
rest of the people would pay for their stay when they arrived for the WSF.
We reached this deal because there are exactly 50 IMC Brazil volunteers
who are going to the WSF and who cannot afford to stay at the building.
It's important to say that, since this building represents the cheapest
and more secure housing option, many volunteers from other countries
already intend to stay at the building. Besides, we all believe it would
be the perfect opportunity to meet and work with volunteers from several
different countries.
  - Housing for 50 IMC Brasil volunteers who will attend the WSF:
   US$3,00 * 50 people * 10 days =3D US$1,500.00

   TOTAL: US$1,500.00

4. Working space and computers network:
We want to provide a workspace where all IMCistas could work and exchange
experiences. It will be set up in the same building described above. We're
planning to rent 30 computers, get a 1MB  ADSL connection, printers,
scanners and network nodes where laptops and notebooks could be plugged
in.
 - 1MB ADSL connection - US$205.00
 - 30 Computers rent - US$1030.00
 - 2 Hubs (24 ports) - US$115.00
 - Cables needed to set up the network - US$60.00

   TOTAL: US$1,410.00

5. Emergency fund:
We ask for this amount for any emergencies that we might have. Since it's
a huge coverage and plenty of things could go wrong, we thought it would
be a good idea to have an emergency fund. If we do not get to use this
money until the end of the WSF, we will return it to imc-finance.
 - Emergency fund: US$150.00

   TOTAL: US$150.00


We would like to highlight that even if the costs above seem high at
first, we can assure you that they are pretty fair considering the size of
this coverage and the number of people involved. It took us a while to
write this proposal because all the decisions on each of these points were
reached by consensus by the six collectives of IMC Brasil. Therefore, if
we are requesting this amount of money, it is because we believe in the
benefits that a national meeting and that a organized coverage of the last
WSF in Porto Alegre will bring to our network and to the other IMCsistas
who will attend the WSF. We're excited by the possibility of meeting each
other face-to-face, by the possibilities of growth of a network that has
been working quite well since its creation and by all the new
possibilities of organization after this meeting.

Moreover, we compromise ourselves to make a register of all our expenses
and to post this register on imc-finance in February. Thus, the same
people who support our request now will be able to analyze and to
criticize the way we managed this donation. And this way, the imc-finance
working group could use this register as a pointer to approve or deny
future funding request by IMC Brazil, for instance. We will work hard to
make up to the expectations of those who support our request and to
justify the spending of this amount of money.

In solidarity with all the efforts we have dedicated into the organization
of the Indymedia coverage of World Social Forum 2003, we hope that the
imc-finance working group can reach a decision about our request until
January 13th (having a 10 days discussion period), because we need to pay
part of these costs before the event begins (like the building rent, costs
for the installation of the internet connection, etc). If, unfortunately,
that isn't possible, we will wait until January 18th. I'm the liaison for
IMC Belo Horizonte in imc-finance and I am here to clarify any doubts that
might emerge.

We look forward to your response,
Centro de M=EDdia Independente Brasil.

______________________________________


POSTED: [Friday, January 3, 2003] by Rio de Janeiro collective, part of
IMC Brazil (rio@indymedia.org)
DISCUSSION PERIOD: [January 3 to January 17]
DECISION DEADLINE: [January 17]; Noon GMT


Summary:

Funding request to buy a video projector that would be first used at the
WSF and after that would be used by Rio de Janeiro collective on their
local projects.


Proposal:

In addition to the proposal above, Rio de Janeiro collective asks for
US$860.00 to buy a video projector. We are planning to hold video
screening sessions at the Youth Camp, where more than 15.000 activists and
students will be staying. We intend to hold these video sessions every
night, where we could screen the footages recorded during the day at the
WSF itself. Besides, we have plenty of video productions from several
different IMCs, which we could screen along with the other footages. This
project would be great to give more visibility to IMC Brazil, gathering
more readers/volunteers to join our team.

It's important to remember that, even though this equipment could be
rented, it would cost us around US$350.00, almost half of the buying
price. Besides, this video projector would be really useful after WSF
since Rio de Janeiro collective works mostly with video projects, having
been responsible for several videos productions. Since internet is not
accessible for most part of the brazilian population, Rio de Janeiro has
dedicated its time to hold several video sessions, always followed by
debates, on the more different places to the more different audiences
(from college classes to associations of people who live in favelas
[brazilian slums]). This video projector would assure the continuity of
this project.


Waiting for your response,
Coletivo do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

______________________________________


P.S.: This is the total amount in today's currency convertion rate. As you
all probably know, we are facing currency fluctuation and this rate may
have changed by the time this proposal is approved. We don't think tough
that this variation will be significant but we are just warning that the
total value might be slightly more or slightly less. I will provide the
latest currency convertion rate at the day the money will be wired.