>From Kiran, AID India Volunteer. He is one of the board members. He left his job in US and came to serve in India.
============================ Dear all, I wrote earlier about the consumer awareness campaign that we are planning on GM foods. It is called the "I am no lab rat" campaign. We finalized some of the details of the campaign, and I would be really thrilled if some of you can participate in the campaign (at whatever level your time permits). It is a 10-day campaign from Sept 21-30, and there are many kinds of activities for which you can sign up for a day or more. If you can only come on the weekends, we have 2 weekends available! Or if you can be part of our team visiting colleges on Thu/Fri/Sat, you can do that. Meeting Invitation: Firstly, I would like to invite all interested people (whether or not you have decided to commit time to the campaign) to come to the orientation/planning meeting on Sept 13th, 10:30 am at CSA office in Tarnaka. The meeting might help you decide about it! There will be an orientation session about the GM issue and why we need to do the campaign, followed by planning of activities. Do let me know if you are interested in attending, so we have a headcount. My cell number is 9701705743 and email is [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Meeting Address: Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, #12-13-445, Street No - 1, Tarnaka, Secunderabad Office phone: Phone: 27017735 About GM foods issue: This is a very important issue which can impact all of us directly but there is very little public knowledge currently. Just as a snippet, you can read this interview with Dr.P.M.Bhargava, who is perhaps the most famous molecular biology scientist in India (founder of CCMB and adviser to PM). http://infochangeindia.org/200807077208/Agriculture/Features/Genetical ly-modified-crops-The-risk-factor.html Ways you can volunteer: (a) Help in setting up a kiosk/booth at public place and publicizing the issue (basically distributing pamphlets and getting signatures on petition). (b) Visiting colleges and talking to students at a meeting about the issue (again collecting signatures) (c) Publicize the online petition to your colleagues, family and friends; preferably if you have an email list of your co-workers that would be great. (d) Staffing the phone lines, where interested people will call seeing any of our publicity material. (e) Making posters and creative items for the campaign As I said, you can do any of these on one or more days based on your schedule. Obviously, the more the better! Hope to hear from interested folks. thank you! Kiran ================ Following are the details of the Campaign. One of the most important measures affecting our food might be sneaking up on us without much notice. The government for the first time is considering approval of genetically modified food crop (Bt Brinjal). Some of you might have read the articles by Prof. P.M. Bhargava, senior scientific advisor to the govt, who has recently spoken out against GM as being pushed without adequate testing or understanding of consequences. CSA is planning a consumer mobilisation push in hyderabad on the issue of GM foods, with a special focus on Bt Brinjal. As you know, Bt Brinjal's second year large scale trials (probably the last year trials, by all accounts) are underway and in 3-4 months' time, Mahyco is going to walk up to the regulators claiming that they have finished all the necessary tests, everything is fine with their GM brinjal and that they should be allowed to start selling the seeds to farmers from February/March 2009. They are already producing seed anticipating the approval. On the other hand, we have been unable to create large scale awareness so far amongst urban consumers or mobilise them into action on this issue. At the most, we have been able to initiate some dialogues in some villages and ensured that individual farmers remained GM-Free in their cultivation. Now, there is a new idea of giving a campaign push centred around the theme of "being made lab rats of". The consumers will be told that they are lab rats in a big experiment because the safety of GM foods is not proven and we only have the company's claims on the subject - on the other hand, we have evidence to show that GM foods are hazardous and harmful. The idea for this campaign push is to reach out to as many urban consumers as possible directly and through the media on the issue of GM foods and to get them to write to the health minister asking him to stop bt brinjal in India. The plan for this looks like this: - we will be setting up a website called www.iamnolabrat.com (i am no lab rat) which will be informative and which will have a fax/email petitioning facility for internet-savvy consumers to just click and take action; we will try out various means to send as much traffic as possible to this website. This will include at least one lakh newspaper inserts, web banners etc. - we will be getting signatures on physical petitions (for want of a word, as opposed to e-petitions) also through outreach work in colleges, at bus stops, outside shopping malls, on busy streets etc. This will mean setting up kiosks that are easily transported and erected, some banners and posters on the kiosk that will make people stop and take notice. There is also an idea that we will hire an auto- trolley with a cage and a human-lab-rat in it, which will be parked at different places and when people stop and stare, we will explain what this is about and seek their signatures. - finally, we are trying to rope in some celebrities - amala etc. They will go in front of the media to say that they do not want to be lab rats either and that they are also writing to the health minister. www.csa-india.org; www.indiagminfo.org www.aidindia.org
