One challenge to work on now is to close the almost $6,000 gap between adopted quotas and the international goal. Local initiatives to raise goals in a number of areas can succeed in getting the campaign on a solid footing internationally.

Meanwhile, in cities around the world supporters are organizing public meetings to aggressively publicize the fund in their local areas and get the campaign into high gear.

In Chicago, fund-raisers for the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial are sponsoring an October 7 meeting that will feature Hilda Cuzco, a staff writer for both publications. Cuzco will highlight current developments in the class struggle in Ecuador, where mass protests are under way today against the devastating effects on working people of the government's "dollarization" and austerity measures.

Cuzco headed a Militant reporting team to Ecuador during the May Day demonstrations there. The team covered the ongoing protests that reached a high point in January, when a popular uprising led by Indian organizations forced the ouster of President Jamil Mahuad. The demonstrations have also opposed the regional scope of Washington's growing military presence in South America, carried out in the name of "the war on drug trafficking."

Chicago fund director Cappy Kidd reports that a number of industrial workers in Chicago who are originally from Ecuador subscribed to the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial in recent months. Local fund campaigners are beginning to publicize the meeting widely among co-workers and young people. They are explaining that the fund makes possible reporting trips such as the one to Ecuador--as well as helping to finance the weekly production of the working-class press.

Kidd added that supporters of the Militant will be joining Palestinian high school students from the area who have organized buses to attend the September 16 rally in Washington to defend the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.

As the example in Chicago underscores, early October is a good time to organize fund-raising meetings everywhere.

One attractive feature of such meetings can be presentations by fellow fighters who view the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial as their publications.

The efforts to start getting these meetings under way now need to be matched by work to collect payments on pledges that have already been made. A number of local areas have yet to send in their initial contributions.  
 
 
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