On Monday, 24 October, IIRE hosted a closed roundtable discussion for 25 local LGBT activists with Mariela Castro Espín, director of Cuba’s national centre for sexual education (Cenesex) and daughter of the late revolutionary feminist Vilma Espín Guillois, and Camilo García, International Relations Officer of Cenesex and member of the Cuban Communist Party. The intimate encounter provided a moment of reflection and learning, exchange of experiences and a space to discuss current strategies of LGBT emancipation in both Cuba and The Netherlands.

Anybody who is politically active and discussed with others about the possibility of a different society will have heard arguments like 'what you want is all very nice but it will never work, that is just not the way people are'. Ecological activists are confronted with the question what human needs need to be fulfilled to ensure a good life.

This second seminar is a follow-up of the seminar on the economic crisis held in October 2-4 2009. The first seminar was dedicated to the analysis of the immediate consequences of the so-called “subprime crisis” in the USA, namely the rescue of bankrupt banks with public money, the demise of international financial markets, and the deep recession that followed with its dramatic consequences in terms of massive dismissals and increase of poverty.