1. FTAA Action Packet

This packet will prepare activists to speak on the FTAA, lead teach-ins, and organize in their communities. It will include a paper on the FTAA, talking points, an outline for a speech, a sample letter to the editor, a sample letter to Congress, a sample petition, soundbites, website and reading lists, overheads and graphs. Available the third week of January. Order from ACERCA, PO Box 57, Burlington, VT 05402, 802-863-0571, [email protected]

2. FTAA "Campaign of Inquiry" Packet

Backgrounder on the FTAA, action points, and sample letters to Members of Congress and letters to the editor for a campaign of inquiry on FTAA, demanding release of the text and related documents as well as an opening of the negotiations process. The campaign will educate the public and pressure Congress, the White House, the USTR, etc. Download the packet from http://www.tradewatch.org/FTAA/ftaahome.html or contact Alesha Daughtrey, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, 215 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003, 202-454-5103, [email protected]

3. Environmental Action Kit on the FTAA

The Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program is producing an action kit on the FTAA's environmental impacts that will include a four-page factsheet, training materials on communicating to the media and to the general public about the FTAA, and suggestions on how to build a local Responsible Trade coalition. They will support these materials by helping to organize local "town hall" meetings, conducting speaking tours, connecting Sierra Club activists to other coalition partners in your area, and supporting both local actions and participation at the Quebec Summit of the Americas. For futher information, contact Dan Seligman at (202) 675-2387 or at [email protected]

4. "FTAA for Beginners," a two-hour participatory workshop

This workshop describes the FTAA and what it will do to our communities, starting with what people know: NAFTA. It includes NAFTA case studies; a race, gender, and class analysis of NAFTA; and a framework of expanding corporate globalization (WTO, MAI, NAFTA). It ends with a strategy planning session where participants identify local allies for a long-term anti-FTAA campaign. $25 for trainer's guide and handouts, + $25 for 2-x-3 foot flipcharts postpaid, from United for a Fair Economy, 37 Temple Place, Boston MA 02111, 617-423-2148 x 24, [email protected]

5. Popular education training for anti-FTAA activists

The Alliance for Responsible Trade is producing a six-hour popular education workshop for campus, labor, religious, and community use. It will prepare activists to form local coalitions against the FTAA and build support for the Quebec protests, either by recruiting people to go to Quebec or by promoting local solidarity demonstrations. After a six-hour training, ART trainers can stay in your community for several days to work with the most interested activists, but will need financial support to bring you the workshop. Available from ART, 4834 N. Springfield, Chicago, IL 60625, 773-583-7728, [email protected]

6. Pocket booklet on the FTAA

"Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA): What are the Corporations Plotting This Time and Why Do You Care?" will educate activists and others about the terminology of the FTAA such as Deregulation of capital controls, Intellectual property and patent rights protection, Broader definition of investment, National Treatment, etc and what these things mean for humans and other living things. Groups that order 500 copies for $325 can sell the booklet for $1-$1.50 and make a bit of money for themselves. They also get listed on the back cover as co-sponsors. It will be available in January from the Alliance for Global Justice. Groups interested in co-sponsoring should contact [email protected]

7. Printed materials from ART and Chicago AFSC

• Six or eight four-page pieces that provide an overview of the FTAA, analyze its effect on various constituencies (labor, consumers, religious groups...), and offer alternatives for local organizing.
• A brochure describing the Alliance for Responsible Trade, the Alternatives for the Americas, and suggestions for local organizing.
• A videotape that describes the FTAA.
• The Alternatives for the Americas document and a two-page summary of it.
  All the above will be available from ART (see #4).
• Short pieces: "Questions and answers about the FTAA," "Mexico Under NAFTA," "United States Under NAFTA," "Overview of Neoliberalism," from Chicago AFSC, 59 East Van Buren, suite 1400, Chicago IL 60605, 312-427-2533, [email protected]

8. Fact sheets on FTAA's impacts on forests and indigenous peoples, and who's behind the FTAA

Rainforest Action Network will produce printed materials on how FTAA affects forests and indigenous peoples. They'll also develop materials on "Who Writes the FTAA, Who Benefits?" that will spotlight Citigroup, the Business Roundtable, and the role the private financial sector plays in back boardroom wheeling and dealing. Can provide teach-in support. Contact Beka Economopoulos at Rainforest Action Network, 917-560-3609, [email protected]

9. Common Frontiers-Canada

Common Frontiers-Canada has developed a Free Trade Action Kit with about 11 popular education pieces, in English and French. Its focus is the FTAA, targeted at Canadians, though it can be modified to fit US reality. Contact Patty Barrera, [email protected]

10. Mass JwJ

Massachusetts Jobs with Justice is producing a videotape and a four-page 11x17 handout on the FTAA for union and other use. Contact 617-524-8778 or [email protected]

11. Polaris Institute

Tony Clarke of the Polaris Institute in Canada is producing a packet on the FTAA -- information to come.