SFL Around the World: September 2017
We’ll catch you up on what SFL-ers around the world accomplished this September, but first, a special announcement:
SFL Intern, Mariia Chaplia is connecting SFL leaders from around the world! Here’s her pitch for why you should get involved:
From Asia to Europe, North America and Brazil, SFL leaders promote liberty in all the diversity of ways one can imagine. Group structures, recruitment, fundraising and marketing techniques differ from region to region, and this is what makes SFL so powerful.
SFL is a global movement, and the goal is to strengthen cooperation between regions by facilitating cooperation between them based on their comparative advantage, to train and motivate leaders by sharing experiences and organising international projects and, thus, make SFL more interconnected.
To jump in, just email Mariia at [email protected] by November 1st, 2017.
Now, here are the regional updates from Sept 2017.
Brazil
In September, Brazil selected the next 5 Regional Directors and State Coordinators. For the first time in SFLB’s history, they’ll be in their roles for a year rather than six months. That comes from a new Market-Based Management perspective the programs team is applying in order to create a more captivating and bottom-up chain of volunteers.
And the team spent a lot of the month getting ready for LibertyCon Brazil, which came together on October 13-14th with over 600 attendees! Read more about LibertyCon here (Portuguese).
South Asia
South Asia hosted it’s second weekly Virtual Reading Group from September 3 to September 24, 2017. The VRG was moderated by Ken Schoolland, who is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Hawaiian University and is well known for his book Jonathan Gullible. South Asia received 45 applications from 5 different countries across the world, out of which 15 were finally selected for the reading group.
See the full South Asia update here.
Europe
September marked the beginning of our continent-wide Regional Conference season! The first five conferences were held in Podgorica (Montenegro), Kyiv (Ukraine), Reykjavík (Iceland), Stockholm (Sweden) and Ankara (Turkey) with a great success. Do you want to see how our conferences look like? Check out this awesome new video from the Kyiv RC (Free Generation Forum, September 23, 2017):
And along with tabling and events beginning at universities across the continenet, our Local Coordinators from Kosovo Iliria Kajdomqaj Roni Idrizaj were quite busy last month with the promotion of the Prishtina Regional Conference. They also got a change to present the event and ESFL during two different interviews on national television. Check out the first interview on the morning show SOT here.
See the full Europe update here.
Estudiantes por la Libertad
Regional Directors and Executive Board Members have been selected for the region, and the team includes some real super stars, like Cristian Nahuel Centurión, responsible for Uruguay and Argentina.
Across the continent, reading groups, tabling, and events have been taking place, and are continuing even in areas that are challenging to work in, such as Venezuela. There, SFL leaders have been holding informal meetings, called “Beer and Ideas” or “Coffee and Ideas,” to keep the ideas alive and support each other.
Informal gathering in Ecuador
Finally, the EsLibertad Blog and Translation teams have been coming together, with the blog drawing the biggest team ever and even many non-SFL-ers lending their time to help translate libertarian works and commentary into Spanish.
Read the EsLib blog here.
North America
Now that rest of our Campus Coordinators are back on their respective campuses, we are getting back into the swing of things! During the first full month of the semester, our fantastic leaders hosted over 50 campus events!
Students For Liberty was also proud to launch our North America Group Network program in September! Since SFL is not a top down, chapter based organization, but rather a network of support for pro-liberty students across North America and the world, we wanted to give the various groups we work with more support. Now North Americans can get activism kits around four key issues: free speech, economic liberty, anti-war advocacy, or civil liberties.
Our Campus Coordinators earned well over 20 media hits this month – including op-eds published in the Washington Examiner, Salt Lake Tribune, and numerous articles on Campus Reform just to name a few!
Campus Coordinator Yuka Kato from Reed College in Oregon was quoted in The Economist last month in their article “Arguments over free speech on campus are not left v right.” Yuka, explained his college is “…an environment with limited representation of opinion, and it can be hostile to students who hold other views.”
See the full North America update here.
Africa
Action for Liberty and Economic Development together with ASFL – Uganda organized a Liberty & Free Markets conference at the University of Kisubi on the 23rd of September. The theme of the conference was “breaking the barriers to opportunity and prosperity” and focus was on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Freedom.
Forum at Machakos Institute of Technology in Kenya
Our leaders in Machakos University in Kenya held a tabling event on the 12th of September to promote their SFL group and educate students about liberty and the important role they occupy as agents of change in the society. Also, on the 30th of September, they organized a one-day conference at the University’s Hotel & Conferencing Centre. This Conference had an attendance of 56 participants, and they interacted on topics of free markets, youth employability and entrepreneurship among others. Local Coordinators Cynthia Prasis and Shadrack Abala shared classical liberal ideas with students at the Machakos Institute of Technology in Kenya on the 14th of September.
SFL Buvaku wins DRC competition
And and update on the Great Lakes ideas competition taking place in Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo: the DRC portion was concluded in September with SFL BUKAVU emerging as winner! Congratulate them on Facebook here!
See the full Africa update.
Charter Teams
September was the month when we really got the training rolling!
Charter Teams are happy to report that two new countries are joining the family – Lebanon and Iraqi Kurdistan! Moreover, more than 20 new leaders are currently enrolled for our coordinator program.
Finally, our Singaporean shooting stars had already their third event (see right) in short succession – this time with Tomas Forgac, who was talking about the Bitcoin revolution. See more here.