Calgary Freedom to Read Week
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Lynn Foster

In June 2002, the leaders of the world's most industrialized countries, the G8, came to Kananaskis, Alberta, for their annual meetings. These meetings result in critical decisions that have a global impact in a number of areas. Unfortunately, past summits had consistently failed to offer an effective means for individuals, civil society or even other non-G8 nations to provide input or engage in meaningful dialogue with G8 leaders. A committee calling itself the G6B (in reference to the six billion people who would not be represented at the G8 conference) organized a hugely successful "People's Summit" as a counter-point to the G8 Conference.

Lynn Foster of Calgary, working together with Saren Azer of British Columbia, led the organization of the G6B Conference. They were joined by members of an organizing committee drawn from a number of Canadian associations. More than 1400 attendees participated in 18 seminars and panels that addressed human security, Africa, and the connections between the world economy and areas such as education, health, labour and the environment. There were more than 100 speakers from 26 countries.

The G6B conference provided an opportunity for all participants (both speakers and attendees) to express their views about the issues slated for discussion during the G8 meeting. Lynn Foster accepted the 2003 Freedom of Expression Award on behalf of the entire G6B organizing committee.

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Freedom to Read Week, February 21-27, 2010

Most recent update: Sat Feb 20 10:56:53 MST 2010