DemocracyCtr.org

Helping People Build Democracy From the Ground Up

• Our Mission and Work
• A Brief Democracy Center History
• The Democracy Center Staff
• The Democracy Center Advisory Committee

THE DEMOCRACY CENTER'S MISSION AND WORK

The Democracy Center works globally to advance human rights through a unique combination of investigation and reporting, training citizens in the art of public advocacy, and organizing international citizen campaigns. Through all of these efforts the Center is working to help build a global citizenry that understands the public issues before it and is able to take effective public action. A special emphasis of our work is economic globalization and the movement for global democracy and justice.

Investigation and Reporting

The Democracy Center is well known and regarded for its ability to make complex issues both understandable and interesting. The Center's articles have appeared worldwide in newspapers and magazines such as Newsday, The Nation , In These Times, the San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, Minneapolis Star Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Toronto Star, The New Internationalist and others. In 2001 The Democracy Center was awarded top story of the year by Project Censored for its work on the Bolivian water revolt. The Center's work has been also been the basis for many other media outlets including The New Yorker, PBS, the BBC and others.

A Bill Moyers PBS documentary on the water revolt, aired in July 2002, said of The Center's work:

"Though a major American corporation was at the center of the Bolivian unrest, not a single U.S. newspaper had a reporter on the scene. And yet, news of the uprising was reaching a worldwide audience through the Internet. The source was an electronic newsletter with thousands of readers -- written by the American who had uncovered the Bechtel connection -- Jim Shultz [The Center's executive director]. He was in the streets during the uprising, and filing daily accounts about events in Cochabamba."

The Center's current investigation and writing work is focused on a new project, Globalization: Stories from the Front Row, which will look at the real, on-the-ground impact of economic globalization in Bolivia.

The Democracy Center's Publications

Advocacy Training and Support

Since its founding in 1992 The Democracy Center has trained and counseled thousands of citizen advocates on five continents. We have worked with immigrant leaders and parent groups in California, health care workers in apartheid South Africa, women's groups in Tanzania, community organizers in the Balkans, budget groups in Mexico, economic justice groups in Thailand, public health activists in the former Soviet Union, youth groups in Paraguay, pro-democracy activists in Peru, social justice advocates in Bolivia and many, many others.

The Center's training programs include a broad mix of topics, from developing advocacy strategy to media advocacy, to coalition building and lobbying.

The Democracy Center's Advocacy Training and Support Programs.

International Citizen Action Campaigns

Bringing its investigative and training work together, The Democracy Center initiates and leads global citizen action campaigns that can make a strategic difference on behalf of global justice work. When Bechtel Corporation took over public water in Bolivia and refused to leave in the face of broad public protest, The Democracy Center revealed Bechtel's secret involvement and launched an international pressure campaign aimed at Bechtel's CEO. When Bechtel sued Bolivia for $25 million in a secret World Bank trade court, The Center spearheaded the effort of an International Citizens' Petition to the World Bank demanding that the case be opened to public participation and scrutiny.

These campaign and others give citizens worldwide an opportunity to join together, in new and innovative ways, taking action on issues of global democracy and justice.

The Center's is now preparing to launch a new international citizen's campaign called Human Rights First

The Democracy Center's Campaigns.