Grant Neufeld is a social justice and media activist, as well as a politician and noted knitter in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. At a young age he moved with his family to Calgary, where he was raised and lives today.

In addition to his political and activist efforts, he works in the field of community economic development on a local currency project at the Calgary-based "Arusha Centre".

Politics

In October 2, 2004, Neufeld was elected President of the Green Party of Alberta.

In the November 2004 Alberta general election, he ran, unsuccessfully, as the Green Party of Alberta candidate in the provincial riding of Calgary-Buffalo . He placed third out of 7 candidates, with about 9% of the vote.

Activism

Since his youth, Neufeld has been involved with many activist causes, projects and organizations. He has worked on a broad range of social justice and environmentalist issues, including feminism, the Peace movement, Environmentalism and anti-poverty work.

His largest contribution to activist movements may have been the "Calgary Activist Network". He founded the largely internet-based project in August, 1999, and served as Director and primary programmer of the project until the end of December, 2003. The Network serves as a clearing house for a diverse range of social justice and environmental activism efforts. In identifying the intended diversity of the project, Neufeld stated "Everyone should be able to find something on the Network that offends them. If that's the case, then it's diverse enough."

The project that has brought him the most public attention, including interviews by media from across Canada, in the U.S., and in Europe, is the "Revolutionary Knitting Circle" which he founded in 2000. He remains global coordinator, and local coordinator for the Calgary group, to the present.

Frustrated with the role Canadian oil company Talisman Energy, Inc. was serving through its operations in war-torn Sudan, Neufeld and a small group of Calgary-based activists founded the group "Project Sudan" in February of 2001. Working in coalition with other social justice groups, they were eventually successful in getting the company to withdraw from Sudan.

On July 21, 2001, it was announced that the G8 Summit was to be held in Kananaskis, Alberta. With Calgary being the nearest major centre, it was clear that it would be the primary hub for protest organizing for the Summit. Shortly after the announcement, Neufeld and other local activsts co-founded "Calgary G8 ACT", a group established to coordinate the protests.

With the emergence of mass global resistance to the then-impending invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led forces, in early 2003, activist groups in Calgary working on peace related issues came together to form a loose coalition that came to be known as "Peace Calgary". Since its founding, Neufeld has served as a coordinator.

In the spring of 2004, he was approached to serve as a co-chair of the "Alberta Social Forum", which was slated to be held next in Calgary. After some organizing work, he officially became overall coordinator that summer.

Independent Media

Neufeld has worked on, and contributed to, a number of independent and alternative media projects, publications and internet based independent news services.

In the first half of 2000, he published the short lived independent newspaper The Independent Reporter.

With significant protests anticipated at the World Petroleum Congress to be held in Calgary in June of 2000, Neufeld joined with other local independent media activists to establish "Calgary Indymedia". In 2001 he participated in the expansion of the project to become "Alberta Indymedia", and continued to work with and support the project through 2004.

Publications

• Co-authored RFC 2369, published July 1998.

External Links

• Grant Neufeld