First-ever Latin American Migrant Summit
chartering a path toward networked, transnational communities
more info at www.migrantsummit.org

Enlaces América was honored to serve as the Secretariat for the First Latin American Community Migrant Summit which took place in Morelia, Michoacán, México this past May. The event surpassed our most optimistic expectations, attracting a total of one thousand participants, with 750 people attending more than one day of the event. Participants included migrant leaders, policy makers, non-profit organizations, foundation representatives, businesses, students, academics, and government officials.

Many people contributed to making the migrant summit a success. Strong support from the state government of Michoacán and the municipal government of Morelia combined with philanthropic contributions from a diverse set of foundation and corporate sponsors enabled the participation of migrant leaders from Central and South America, as well as Europe. In the United States, many migrant-led groups organized their own fundraising efforts, sending dozens of their members in Morelia. A great group of nearly fifty volunteers helped manage everything from registration to note taking.

As planned, the perspectives of migrant leaders were prominently represented on all roundtable and workshop presentations. At least fifty to seventy-five percent of all workshops/roundtable speakers were migrant leaders. This directly provided a transnational perspective on the issues that were being addressed in each session.

The migrant Summit opened a space for increased dialogue among migrant organizations on issues as diverse as health, local development, gender, and youth identity. Summit participants made a particular effort to analyze the root causes of migration and identify ways in which migrants and the power of remittances can be used to create local sustainable economic development in countries of origin.

Even before the Migrant Summit officially launched on May 10, 2007, participants had already begun calling for a follow-up process. Many migrant groups had previous experiences with exciting meetings that never seemed to lead to any outcomes in terms of improving activities or advocacy on the ground. From its initial conceptualization, the Summit process stressed the need for follow up that will enable migrant-led organizations to collaborate more closely on advocacy and to share lessons learned from their diverse programs in areas such as protecting migrants human rights; fostering diverse, democratic organizations, stimulating sustainable local development, making remittances more effective engines of development, protecting migrant physical and mental health; and working toward gender equity in both sending and receiving nations.

The results of most of the workshops were posted to the website at www.migrantsummit.org (www.cumbredemigrantes.org in Spanish). A synthesis of the specific recommendations for follow-on work can also be found in the Conclusions section of the Summit Website. However, the international planning committee has always understood that follow-up will require much more than just a website. The information on the website must be processed and discussed at the local and regional levels, with a process for engaging groups in taking on responsibility for specific areas of follow up, and tracking progress.

We will keep our readers posted about additional follow up activities as they develop.