Outreach and Education

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Mandate and Primary Activities
     The mandate of the Education and Outreach Committee was to
raise public awareness both about the impact of G-7 policies, and
about the existence in Halifax of an alternative forum (the P7);
and to help build links between the P7 and other groups in the
community.

     The primary activities which this committee organized were:
the design and mailing out of pamphlets; the three popular
education workshops on issues relating to the G-7; the three 20
minute educational activities, presented during the monthly
People's Forums during the Spring; and the kick-off picnic. The
P7 communique was an idea that emerged within this committee, but
was eventually overseen by a separate working group. The June
10th picnic was this committee's last activity, and so the
committee wound up operations at the time that the People's
Summit opened.


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Workshop Series
     Three public workshops were held on Saturday mornings at the
North Branch Library:

How is our quality of life affected by the G-7? (April 29)
Deficit Cutting: What is the agenda of the G-7? (May 13)
Sustainable development or the G-7 agenda? (May 27)
     Formats used included: role playing, video presentation,
simulation game, and open discussion and debate.

     Each workshop was deemed to be successful. However, there
was some disappointment concerning a lower than expected
turn-out. Part of this was a result of a lack of early publicity
(public service announcements, for instance, were sent out too
late for the first workshop). Nevertheless, more interest from
the various groups working with the P7 had been expected.
Perhaps a more active campaign of recruitment and
pre-registration might have helped here.


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The Picnic
     The June 10th kick-off picnic was organized by a
sub-committee of the Education and Outreach Committee, and was
conceived as a fun, family oriented social event. This was a
large undertaking made possible due to the efforts of a large
number of volunteers which went beyond the membership of the
Education and Outreach Committee. Luckily, the weather was
perfect, and the turn-out was large . By all accounts, this was a
highly successful event, and a good, energizing start to the week
of the People's Summit.


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Problems and Set-backs
	Many of the original ideas concerning what the Committee 
might be able to do had to be abandoned due to limited human and
financial resources. These ideas included: the development of 
information packs, fact sheets, and/or video presentations on the 
G-7, for use in popular education activities; and the active 
development of links with other grass-roots organizations in the 
community (e.g. by making presentations in schools, churches, etc.). 
Even  the educational activities presented at the People's Forum 
ended up being more entertainment than popular education on specific 
issues relating to the G-7 (with guest speakers and so on), again due 
mainly to lack of time for preparations. 


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     The Accommodations Committee was lucky. It was formed much
later than it should have been; and even had it been formed
earlier, the limited supply of accommodation available in Halifax
would likely already have been eaten up by the G-7. - Not to
mention that funds for booking rooms were also extremely limited.

     A few spaces were acquired in bed & break- fasts and
university dormitories, and a good deal of effort was put into
recruiting billets (Thanks to all those who offered billets!).
This provided enough spaces to establish a "last resort" policy;
i.e., come to us if you can't find anything on your own, or
through your host organization. An information sheet was
compiled to help people make their own searches, as this task was
beyond the means of the 4 (then 3) woman committee.

     Fortunately, most visitors were taken care of by their host
organizations, and the rest were able to find rooms or billets
through us.

     Unfortunately, however,the lack of interest in camping meant
we were unable to direct anyone to the tent city in Africville.

     Other than this, our problems were pretty stan- dard; too
few people to do too much work, a late start, little money, and
no idea how many people we'd need to find accommodation for. 

     A fairly serious problem arose when all calls regarding
accommodations inquiries had to be handled through one of the
homes of the committee members, making it "accommodations
central", and making it impossible to delegate work.

     However, we, like the rest of the committees actually
managed to fulfill our function (we sometimes had our doubts),
and somehow, the P7 actually came off. I don't know how we did
it, but we did...