Featured in Canadian Dimension
Broke But Unbroken
Grassroots Social Movements and Their Radical Solutions to Poverty
Award-winning independent journalist and author Augusta Dwyer explores the successes of grassroots movements in addressing poverty, examining in detail the Landless Rural Workers Movement in Brazil, the Peasant Union of Indonesia, the Indian Alliance (of five organizations including the National Slum Dwellers Federation), and the National Movement of Factories Recovered by Workers in Argentina.
Dwyer argues that the preferred poverty reduction strategies of western governments and aid agencies do little to address the issue and, more often than not, perpetuate colonial attitudes. These approaches are based on the belief that the rich-who have caused many of the problems faced by the world’s poor-are the only ones wise enough to solve these problems. While this is certainly not a new argument for those familiar with alternative approches to international develpment, it benefits from Dwyer’s wrting style.
Much of Broke but Unbroken reads like a novel and allows the reader to get to the people inside these stories that have dedicated their lives to building these movements.-AT, Canadian Dimension, Nov/Dec2011