An alternative economy

The best social projects against disadvantage, unemployment and discrimination in Europe were presented in Warsaw on 10-12 May, during a conference on “Social economy: a model for inclusion, entrepreneurship and local development” promoted by the Equal Community Initiative, a project of the European Commission funded by the European Social Fund. The social economy, formed of cooperatives, associations, NGOs and social enterprises, in fact represents between 5 and 10% of the economy of the developed countries and contributes in a significant way to the reduction of exclusion and discrimination within the labour market. At the conference in Warsaw 17 projects run by nine European countries (including Italy, France, Greece, Portugal, UK, Austria and Sweden) were described: they form the best of the “good practices” among the 256 actions of the second phase of the Equal Project (there were 155 in the first phase) currently being implemented throughout Europe. Other events of this type will follow in Italy, Finland and Germany. The other initiatives presented in Poland include the consultancy agency for the tertiary sector created in Portugal and called C3, the Social Enterprise Partnership established to form a network between social enterprises in the UK and the Swedish portal Slup.se, dedicated to the protagonists of the social economy. During the conference discussion also focused on civil society in Poland and how to handle the situation of Roma in Europe by involving them in social action and in partnership between the world of business and the tertiary sector. We describe two experiences presented at Warsaw. AN ELECTRONIC CURRENCY FOR SOLIDARITY. It’s called Sol, and is an original project being tested in France, in three pilot zones: Ile de France, Nord-Pas de Calais and Brittany. The Sol can “be a complementary means of exchange that can revitalise the original function of money: facilitation, mediation and exchange”. So far 18,000 “Sol chip cards” have been distributed – the system also uses the internet and cell phones – in 450 sales points in the three zones in question. The experiment is being conducted from May 2006 to December 2007, and also involves two big insurance companies, a cooperative credit bank and an agency that issues vouchers (such as luncheon vouchers). The Sol project, explain its promoters, “is the result of a long preparatory process that began at the congress on social currency held in Paris in 2005. An informal workgroup was set up to examine the various systems of social currency that exist in the world, such as Lets in the UK, Time Dollar in the USA, Chiemgauer in Germany, Wir in Switzerland and the products of Cheque déjeneur in France”. All this is based on an experiment conducted in Wörgl, in Austria, in 1932 and 1934 as a cure for economic decline and a level of unemployment that had risen to 35%. The town of Wörgl printed special banknotes, which had a negative interest rate. Thanks to this local currency Wörgl became the first town in Austria to achieve full employment in 1934. The Sol system functions along the same line as fidelity cards and air miles. Time can be exchanged and discounts obtained on goods and services within the Sol network. For example, you can exchange a lesson in cooking with a lesson in ballroom dancing. At Rennes, just to illustrate the system with one episode, an elderly lady wanted to rent a room in her apartment to a young student, who could not afford to pay the market rent. By joining the Sol network she was able to use electronic money to pay for public transport, cultural activities such as tickets for museums and the cinema or services for the home. The tenant, to offset the economic rent, made time available to care for the disabled or help teenagers in difficulty. “Albergo in via dei Matti”. The unusual name given to the Italian project – “Hotel on the Street of the Mad”, taken from the song of a famous singer-songwriter – involves a European chain of “social hotels” that use the mechanism of franchising for their management, including the employment of disabled persons and those suffering from serious psychological disorders. “Social franchising – explain its promoters – is a commercial method to form very innovative networks. It does not function merely by selling know-how as a simple franchising. But it needs a complex network of organizations that assume responsibility, pay attention to quality of service and are capable of networking”. The project now has 24 partners, most of them small organizations, including the handicapped and their families, hotel organizations and experts, local authorities and communities, banks and commercial partners. The point of departure was the Hotel Tritone in Trieste, which has been in operation since 1991. It is run by a small social cooperative. Training courses were later held (200 hours of courses) involving 10 small businesses in five different cities in Northern and Southern Italy. The project’s central office has been established in Rome.