Travel to ISA Summer School

We, Liam, Sahana and Claire from Boston Socialist Alternative, are asking for your support in getting to the 2023 International Socialist Alternative summer school!

Many of you know Socialist Alternative as the organization behind Kshama Sawant. Through her city council seat, we have built movements of working and young people to win the first $15/hr minimum wage in a major city in the U.S., and other historic victories like an end to all winter evictions and a first-in-the nation ban on caste discrimination. Last summer, in the wake of the Supreme Court overturn of Roe V. Wade, our organization led protests that drew thousands of people into the streets, helped organize walkouts at high schools and college campuses across the country, and made Seattle the first abortion sanctuary city in the country. We have also been on the front-lines of a re-emerging labor movement, fighting alongside nurses in NYC, teachers in Los Angeles, and putting forward a program of militant rank-and-file action and strong demands for new organizing campaigns at places like Starbucks and Amazon.

But we don’t just fight for working people in the United States. Socialist Alternative is part of an international organization called the International Socialist Alternative (ISA). The ISA has sections in over 40 countries fighting against capitalist oppression and for a socialist transformation of society. This past year, we helped lead solidarity protests around the world in response to the historic protest movement in China against Xi Jinping’s disastrous Zero Covid Policy. In Brazil, our members have organized protests against the far-right terror of Bolsonarists against Black Brazilians, and queer and indigenous people. Our members in Europe just organized our first-ever international conference of socialist feminists in March through our campaign ROSA, where young activists from across the continent came together to discuss how to fight back against increased violence and repression against women. Our Indian section just launched a newspaper which will actively counter Modi’s far-right Hindu nationalism, and put forward a united, multi-racial working-class program. And in the UK, our members have been actively involved in one of the country’s longest, ongoing strike waves, raising the need for maximum coordination between striking workers, and ultimately, a general strike to bring down the Tory government.

In July, the ISA is holding a summer school in Belgium where hundreds of socialists from around the world will meet for a week of discussion and debate. In today’s era of rising inter-imperialist conflict, a cost of living crisis, and climate change, it is crucial that we meet and share key lessons in our united fight for a socialist world. Three members from the Boston branch of Socialist Alternative have the exciting opportunity to attend the summer school in Belgium, but we need your help getting there!

We have a target of raising $3,600 to cover the cost of flights, and room and board while in Belgium. If you could chip in $50, $25, or even your pocket change, it would go a long way in helping us attend and towards building the socialist movement!

Solidarity,

Liam, Sahana, and Claire