.beehive design collective.

The bees of the Beehive Collective are excited to share and spread the word of the launching of Polinizaciones. Polinizaciones is a collaboration
between the Beehive and various communities, groups and people in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador & Panama to distribute the hive´s graphic trilogy regarding globalization in America, specifically the FTAA, Plan Colombia & Plan Puebla Panama. This past year of 2007 was spent meeting and sharing with just some of the organisms affected in the region by these policies and responding with resistance. In 2008 local ants and bees will swarm the regions interested sharing stories, experiences, the graphics and skills sharing with the creation of new pedagogy tools and cultural resistance.

Yet an integral part of the Beehive's popular education mission is to ensure
that the results of their collaborative research process - the finished illustrations - are returned to the communities that are most affected by the realities depicted in the graphics. While people living the daily reality of US intervention in Colombia and the mega-projects of the PPP know quite well what they are experiencing, the graphics serve as a tool to facilitate communication about communities' struggles as well as for fostering dialogue about the realities in different places. In our work with the communities in Colombia and Panamá we will specifically, but not exclusively, use image-based communication tools. The project team will facilitate this graphic-based learning, encouraging the sharing experiences through methods of popular education.

While our presentations and dialogues will include whole communities, *Polinizaciones* will focus primarily on outreach to youth and young adults who are already active in one way or another in their communities. Youth are often full of energy and creativity for organizing, but may lack the channels to network or help organize with their elders around such daunting issues as militarization and infrastructure development. Using the Beehive's visually dense, portable murals as a way to engage youth in social justice organizing will help address a lack of readily *accessible,* engaging, even humorous materials about the effects of economic policies and militarization in the region. As inspiring tools that enable widely-distributed yet highly-personal storytelling, these pen and ink, almost comic-book-esque images attract youth and have already generated overwhelming positive responses from groups working with these educational tools in Colombia.

Since 2000, the Beehive Design Collective has worked to develop a body of educational artwork informed by firsthand, grassroots research. Using the graphics as a focal point for workshops, discussions and 'picture-lectures', the Beehive is developing an innovative strategy for image-based education that is highly accessible to diverse audiences. We seek to break down overwhelming, academic, complex, and abstract topics through images that depict the effects of corporate globalization on our everyday lives.