Chiapas, Mexico, 1996. Dorothea Härlin arrived from Mexico City with a truck full of provisions at a village of the Zapatistas -- a guerrilla movement which had turned to weapons in the fight for the rights of the native population. What she saw there changed her perspective. "People there have nothing, and yet they build their own villages and their own world," Härlin says. "That really impressed me."

The 60-year-old, who retired early from teaching for health reasons, has been married for 30 years, has two children, and lives in Berlin's Kreuzberg district. Since her trip to Chiapas, Härlin has been to four World Social Forums in Nairobi, Porto Alegre and Caracas, where globalization critics from around the world meet. Now she is an activist for Attac.

For the G-8 protest, she's organized the project, "Speak With Them." Among others, three women from the slums of Buenos Aires and Nairobi are taking part. Härlin collected foundation money for their travel and is putting them up in her apartment. "These are people who don't wait for the state to change something. They are doing it themselves," she says.

When she speaks, Härlin's hands move through the air as if she's trying to grab hold of the world. This happens often when she describes individuals who effect change by working together. She calls it the "bee sting tactic," where many small bees can slay a large animal -- like the G-8.

Härlin criticizes Germany's Left Party, though. Many don't see that the world is too complex to explain with simple slogans, she says. It is a lesson she has taken from her life.

In 1968, Härlin moved from her parent's middle-class home in Stuttgart to Berlin. As a teacher, she thought she could replace grades with self-determination, like the students at Berlin's Free University, where she studied history and political science. It didn't work. In 1968, she says she still dreamed of a great revolution, but today there are a number of mini-revolutions. Reversing the privatization of the Berlin water management was one small victory for Härlin.