Self-introduction

Interested in the work on Nonformal education by Helen Hill. I left UMass in the late 60s and eventually found my way to "nonformal education" through a Gurdjieff group where i was able to continue studies in art and develop my career. (Also interested in Micronesia since I have had the privilege to work with some of the Marshallese Community here) After many years of various kinds of activism, began to study local currencies around 2008, reading Bernard Lietaer and others and tried to start a system in my town but it didn't take off, though a for-profit system did have the funds and expertise to be successful at it. Have been promoting a Carbon Fee and Dividend to address climate change with Citizens Climate Lobby since 2012, which has led me to Environmental Justice and racial equity concerns. The conviction that to achieve any kind of equity the entire economic system has to change led me to join Transition US and to work with a group in my town on exploring collaborations on explorations of new systems. Would love to be in touch with others on the same path. Am still working as an artist: alittlecompany.net

Sorry I took so long to get back to you Shelley, yes, non-formal education was my topic for my PhD thesis at the Australian National University's Centre for Continuing Education, my supervisor was Chris Duke, Honorary Secretary at the time of the International Council of Adult Education when Paulo Freire was its President and Budd Hall, its General Secretary, founder of Participatory Action Research - exciting times. I became aware of some great models in Fiji (the Tutu Training Centre), New Caledonia, (Maisons Familiales Rurales), and Micronesia (the Micronesian Seminar and even the governments' Community Colleges). Working for the Commonwealth Youth Program in the Pacific I became aware of how important the co-operative sector is, but often fails due to inadequate education and training of its members, the public in general and almost total absence from formal education!.

Hi everyone, I'm Lucienne and work as a writer and project manager in conservation/climate resilience sectors. I'm interested in how SSE can be applied to natural infrastructure so that communities can take over the means of financing and designing nature-based infrastructure that protects community interests over commercial assets and specifically utilize green spaces to protect against disaster and support green jobs. I'm still somewhat new to SSE, so here to learn, but can contibute communications support in terms of writing, design, video, press, disemmination - especially skilled at translating "complex" or technical concepts to wider audiences. Also a volunteer with the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives.

Lucienne, what's interesting here in Europe that renewable energy consumer co-ops have been set up and growing in different countries, not only to stimulate the green economy but also to resist against the tyranny of the huge corporations. Somenergia is the Spanish co-op but you can find similar co-ops in other European countries (or you can ask them for further info)...

https://islandpress.org/books/energy-democracy Is anyone familiar with this book? It was written in 2012, I believe but is an inspiring collection of descriptions of local actions to create energy democracy. From the website: The contributors offer their perspectives and approaches to climate and clean energy from rural Mississippi, to the South Bronx, to Californian immigrant and refugee communities, to urban and semi-rural communities in the Northeast. Taken together, the contributions in this book show what an alternative, democratized energy future can look like, and will inspire others to take up the struggle to build the energy democracy movement.
 

Yes! I have that book and enjoyed it. It is by Denise Fairchild of Emerald Cities Collaborative!

Hi, Helen thanks for inviting me. hello everyone: I am Angelo Jong, born an live in TImor Leste, Passionate about Credit Union movement in TImor Leste. Together with a few friends, established a Credit Union back in 2013 and still working to develop it. It is my pleasure to learn from everyone here in this group.

Welcome, Angelo!! I don't know if you have good Internet connection to be able to watch the whole video (which lasts one hour), but I'd really recommend you to watch this one about Banco Palmas in Fortaleza (Brazil), with English subtitle.

They have decades of histories to self-organise and develop their own neighbourhood and it should be quite interesting for you too. In case you have somebody fluent in Portuguese, they can read a lot of interesting documents to learn more in Portuguese...

Thanks, Miguel for sharing. will find sometime to watch and read some of their articles.

Here is the book titled "Banco Palmas 15 years: Resisting and innovating" (in Portuguese). There're much more resources, but their success story is so impressive you can learn from them (the best would be to ask the Brazilian Embassy to ask for international cooperation, but I don't know if it's still possible)...

we are in the process of getting the organization operationalised, working on management and some basic financial system. we are looking forward to international cooperation in the near future.

Namaste everyone, I am Sudha Reddy from Bangalore, South India. Thanks, Miguel for bringing me to this interesting group. I am an grassroots activist and researcher.

I am founder of Eco Foundation for Sustainable Alternatives, NGO working among the most deprived rural communities in India. I am also associated with a research centre specialized in right to food & nutrition in child rights under National Law School of India University. Bangalore.

I was in the core group of MBM, which organized international conferences on SSE. I have also participated in Asian Forum for social solidarity & in RIPESS.

In India, we don't have term SSE technically but the traditional practices are based on SSE principles. It is important to recognise the existing practices and build on them while promoting SSE among the marginalized communities, especially women. It's critical to bridge the bond between human economic relations and natural eco systems .

I am glad to be with you all for mutual learning and cooperation.

Hi, Everybody.

I'm Mauricio Sena, from Santa Maria, RS, Brazil, a journalist, educator and PhD student in rural extension (communication/development) at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, doing some researches in agroecology, climate change, solidarity economy and innovation, trying to finish my thesis.

My study group is a link between or university and Projeto Esperança/Cooesperança (Pt/Br) a big solidarity economy experience in our city, in activity since 1988 that keeps a fair trade market with more than 300 groups (craftsmen, peasants, indigenous peoples, "qulombolas" (afrobrazilians traditional community), promoting small busyness, local products, regional food, comunitary integration and empowerment.

Also, I'm a guest researcher in COIDESO - Universidad de Huelva, a member in Observatorio La Rábida and LIIISE (Sites in Spanish), with focus in ibero-american integration, south-south collaboration, generation of knowledge, innovation and multilevel and multiactor alliances for the development of public policies.

Greetings.

Hello, Everyone. Thank you Miguel for the initiative. 🎉

I'm Bimo Ario, from Indonesia, living in Yogyakarta city. I am an enthusiast & actively engaging in the cooperative movement. I also did a few facilitating programs about the topic with or without related NGO around Indonesia. Lately, we develop a few cooperative to support our primary need such food coop, housing, and also clothing. It hasn't been running yet, however, we are optimistic that we should do it.

Hoping to connect & learn a lot.

Hi Miguel,

I am Casper Joseph Fa'asala from Solomon Islands and hailed from the Province of Malaita. I worked in the capital city of Honiara, with a semi-government organization called the Solomon Islands National Council of Women as an Advocator for Women in Leadership and Trainer in Gender Development and Transformational Leadership. However, my interest is more to reforestation and agro-forestry working with my tribal group to develop an already logged area by planting mahogany and eucalyptus trees and is interested in growing kava, noni and pineapples under this reforestation project. I am looking for financial assistance from those supporting such developments to engaging the mass youth and women in the rural community. Could anyone help to lead me to such support and I will be too willing to forward to them a proposal for consideration. Hope to connect further.

Casper, welcome aboard!! People tend to pay little attention to Oceania quite often because of the long distance, but as a global community we need to enhance cooperation with the region as well.

On the other hand I have to tell you sincerelty that, as we aren't government agencies, we can't provide you with such funds unless some ethical banks are interested in investing in your project...

One thing I've been thinking for many countries will be to leverage the remittances so this money can be used to invest in the home country and contribute to the development, rather than spending it away for white appliances etc. Does anybody has better idea in this respect? Thank you!!

Hello! I am Pedro Muñoz Ramírez, Costa Rican. I graduated from the PhD programme in Comparative Culture and Area Studies from the University of the Ryukyus, Japan in last September. MA in Political Science (Social Systems & Public Policy) from the same uni, and specialist in Public Administration from the U of Costa Rica. My Postgraduate research work has been related to the political economy of tourism in Okinawa, Japan, the Philippines, and Costa Rica.

My relationship with cooperativism goes all the way back to when I was still an undergrad, when I co-designed the Costa Rican Observatory for Cooperative Organizations, a plan that ultimately didn't come to fruition due to lack of political support. Nonetheless, my interest in cooperative organizations has ever since been high because I've seen its effects in rural areas in Costa Rica.

After 8 years living in Japan, I fled back to Costa Rica when the pandemic hit hard and it got hard to get by ($$). Since then, I embarked in several projects here in CR, the most important for the interests of this forum is the foundation along with other 11 people, of the first Costa Rican cooperative dedicated to technological change ("technological change" as in helping organisations, especially small and medium scale co-ops to take the technological leap towards the maximization of efficiency through the use of IoT, IT and the like).

Despite this forum seems to be filled with heavy weights in research and connections, I would love to help out with anything you'd want me to. Cheers

Hello everyone, so glad to be here. I am a researcher at the University of Hull at the moment, but originally i am from Greece (and Turkey). My specialty is economics and i have done a lot of research in SSE. At the moment i am doing research about the local farmers markets. Did you know that UK has many small producers and also small independent markets and a local solidarity economy which is traditional? I did not, i knew only the trade union part of the story, which is amazing on it own right, but it seems it belongs to a broader solidarity culture in the island.

Hello folks. Thank, Miguel, for getting us organized.

I've been organizing for solidarity economies in the US since 2009, with a primary focus on building relationships and forms of support for solidarity economy practitioners in New York City. This included creating a collective to hold this work, SolidarityNYC (solidaritynyc.org), and forming a federation of solidarity economy groups, Cooperative Economics Alliance of NYC (gocoopnyc.com.) If you'd like to learn more about that work, check out this essay that SolidarityNYC cowrote: https://geo.coop/story/map-heart. As part of that work we also formed a support group for women and gender non-conforming people in solidarity economy groups in NYC, Everyday Solidarity for Everyday Sexism, and formed a philanthropic initiative to move much needed no strings attached funds to solidarity economy groups in crisis, called the Solidarity Economy Giving Project. I am currently working as an organizational development and fundraising consultant for racial justice nonprofits and co-ops.

I joined this space because US practitioners have much to learn from cooperation and solidarity economies internationally, but very few opportunities for that learning. (We are not known for internationalism or cooperation, unfortunately.)

I am particularly eager to learn how others have structured federations and networks to effectively build political and economic power. I have many questions about democracy and governance in those settings, especially how to avoid replicating the oppression present in our societies, and I'm especially interested in how networks and federations have formally financially resourced themselves. I'm seeing a lot of attention going to the state and philanthropy in the US, as those institutions take an interest in worker co-ops as an "everybody can be a boss!" diversified capitalism approach. I'm far more interested in developing our autonomy and independence as co-ops and solidarity economy organizations, and finding meaningful ways to build value chains and actually create the economic development we seek. Please, if you have resources of thoughts about either, reach out to me on this platform or at cheyennawebernyc@gmail.com.