The world social forum and the agenda of grassroots education

It is the dream that liberates. From everything: from the world, from others,from us. It is necessary to believe in the dream. And to save it always. In orderto save ourselves. In order to leave the radiant face of our joy in the lastwilderness, and in the last shadow, where other lives will come later and askthe things that we today are asking ourselves. (Cecília Meireles)...perhaps the correct idea is that the future is just an immense void, that thefuture is but the time with which the eternal present feeds itself. If the futureis void, thought Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, then there is nothing that hemay call Sunday, its fortuitous existence depends on my existence, and if I diedat this moment, a part of the future or of the possible futures would becancelled forever. (José Saramago)This article looks at the Third World Social Forum from the perspective of Grassroots Education. Initially it deals with the objectives and the dynamics of the Forum and then identifies themes for reformulating the agenda for Grassroots Education. The first point refers to the necessity and possibility for Grassroots Education to redefine itself as a global project. The second deals with the plurality of inputs and the subsequent epistemological and methodological challenges. Finally, I identify some emerging and recurrent themes based on the 1,286 workshops offered during the Forum.