New Economy Working Group

Noel Ortega

Noel Ortega is the coordinator of the New Economy Working Group (NEWGroup), which is a partnership between YES! Magazine, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), and the People-Centered Development Forum (PCDForum). We believe the basic design elements of the New Economy are largely known. It remains, however, to pull them together into a coherent, compelling, and accessible story of possibility, backed by a practical action agenda and popular education campaign. This is the work NEWGroup seeks to advance through working partnerships with the many progressive groups that seek to create a world that works for all. Our intention is to articulate what is necessary and desirable without regard to what is currently politically feasible, and then to contribute to creating the conditions that make the necessary and desirable politically inevitable.

Noel is an organizer that subscribes to many revolutionary philosophies one of which comes from Paulo Freire. In his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire states that liberation needs to come from the oppressed, and in return, not only will it liberate themselves, but will also liberate their oppressors. To achieve liberation activist need to engage in praxis - a dialectical process between revolutionary theories manifesting into revolutionary action, and from within revolutionary action arises the need to reflect on the outcomes of her/his actions. Reflection is needed to alter or change the theory, which starts the process again. Noel has used this frame of thought to guild him through many of his leadership roles as an activist and organizer.

Noel is co-founder of several student organizations such as Global Resistance Network at Mt. San Antonio College, and Students To End Hunger and Poverty at the University of California at Irvine. He has also taken-on leadership roles with Students for Peace and Justice, the Worker-Student Alliance, United Students for Fair Trade, The Real Food Challenge, and the Student Trade Justice Campaign, and he is an OXFAM America CHANGE leader.

Noel holds two Baccalaureates in Political Science, and Sociology from the University of California at Irvine, where he conducted research on the impact of regional free trade agreements between developing countries and developed countries on rural communities. Before becoming the National Coordinator of STJC, Noel coordinated the campaign Justice For the Americas at SJTC, which focused on defeating Free Trade Agreements between the United States and Latin America. 

Recent Work