If you hadn’t thought much about Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army prior to March 5, you aren’t alone. Before then, the LRA rarely cropped up on the collective North American mental map. Yet for decades, the LRA have been waging a bloody guerilla war across large swathes of Central Africa, killing and displacing… More »

A new law will impair Canadian development investments in Cambodia and tighten its government’s grip on civil society. More than two months have passed since the Cambodian government released the second draft of the controversial Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (known colloquially as the NGO law),and the country’s civil society organizations are still holding… More »

A project that would have provided hundreds of Metis with jobs and affordable housing was quashed on Tuesday, with a 7-6 vote by the Edmonton City Council. And though it may not seem so at first glance, that decision was likely for the best. While the project’s benefits were appealing, there were some deeper problems with… More »

Media determinists of all stripes have hailed the role of Twitter, Facebook and other social media in prompting the recent pan-Arab revolts. Though it could be argued that these revolts were bound to happen eventually, the catalyst isn’t likely social media — it’s food. One of the main causes of the French Revolution was a combination… More »

If you live in a major Canadian city, you may have seen Plan Canada’s “Because I am a Girl” ads plastered on buses and billboards. In the season of giving, the campaign attempts to sell the virtues of female empowerment. Ads state that girls around the world are three times more likely to be malnourished… More »

As I type this, I am complicit in the funding of rape and war.  You probably are too–sitting on your laptop, listening to your mp3 player, texting on your smartphone–even if you don’t know it. But that could all change with the passing of Barack Obama’s sweeping financial reform legislation by Congress in July. While… More »

Jessica Yee, 24, is the founder and Executive Director of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network and a member of Canadians for Choice. Yee has spent more then half her life mobilizing individuals, families and communities, and has worked nationwide on establishing sexual health initiatives for Aboriginal youth. She took some time to talk with… More »

The Toronto Community Mobilization Network kicked off its themed days of resistance to the G20 on Monday with activists converging around a mixed bag of issues including income equity, community control over resources, migrant justice, and an end to war and occupation. It’s an ambitious start­ for the week-long campaigns. On their own, each issue… More »

While the prime minister has been trying to do damage control for his G20 agenda, activists and organizers of all stripes have been busy building social justice movements. Sometimes movement-building involves bickering over listservs about who gets to the carry the banner, but sometimes it also involves holding massive, multi-day, multi-issue summits. Left Forum might… More »