Ciudades Sin Miedo a space to empower voices from the South
During the 21st, 22nd and 23rd of October, CILA was present at the world’s largest Global Municipalism Meeting “Cities Without Fear”. For 3 days, activists, activists, social organizations, Councillors, ambassadors, civil servants from Latin America, mayors and mayoresses met in the city of Rosario, Argentina; with the challenge of transforming fear into hope and the slogan of working towards a radicalization of democracy, feminization of politics and the transition towards an economy that puts the environment and people at the center.
Through territorial visits, public assemblies, workshops, festivals, organization fairs and public talks, the city of Rosario was occupied by hundreds of people seeking to transform democracy to achieve more open, safe, resilient and sustainable cities.
During the second day, CILA Coordinator Fiorella Wernicke participated in the panel “Protagonist Democracy, Societies in Movement and Political Innovation” with the Deputy for the Antofagasta Region Catalina Perez (Chile), Tucson City Councilwoman Lane Santa Cruz (USA), the Mayor of Municipality G of Montevideo Leticia Torres (Uruguay), Ñuñoa Council Advisor Verónica Avila (Chile), the Councillor of Avellaneda, worker in the Popular Economy and migrant María Alva Gonzalez (Argentina) and Rosalía Szekieta of the Rosario municipality (Argentina); with the facilitator Dardo Ceballos from Institute Update (Uruguay).
During the panel, Fiorella highlighted the emergence of CILA linked to “the need to generate collective responses and promote innovative forms of governance, in the face of a discouraging international and regional context, in order to live in more plural, sustainable and inclusive territories“.
It was also stated that “Innovate represents the path to the recovery of community political capacity and co-governance“. At CILA we believe in democratic governance as the system for advancing change, ensuring equal opportunities and equity for the fulfillment of people’s human rights.
From CILA we understand that meetings such as Cities Without Fear are strategic to continue uniting and strengthening the voices of the South, as well as to promote democratic innovations in Latin America and the world from an interactive, multilevel and multisectoral logic.
Cities Without Fear was born in 2017 together with Barcelona En Comú and counted with the participation of more than 700 people representing more than 100 municipal organizations from all continents. Since then, regional Cities Without Fear events have been hosted in cities such as Brussels, Valparaíso, Warsaw, Belgrade, among others, always in a decentralised way.
