There's been quite a lot going on with SEN. Here are the highlights:

Funding

• We received a $20,000 grant from Solidago to support the development of SEN! We also got $2,500 to support website development through a project that Center for Popular Economics is involved with. This is a great start and very encouraging. We are looking to raise another $120,000, largely for staff support and the 2008 conference.

• We could use help with fundraising, so let us know if you have any fundraising skills, contacts or even just a willingness to help.

• To send a donation, please make checks payable to "SEN/CPE" and mail to:

CPE
PO Box 785
Amherst, MA 01004

Members

Support SEN - become a member!

In addition to a half dozen individuals, the following organizations have joined: Rural Coalition, Friends of the Third World, N. American Students of Cooperation, Network of Spiritual Progressives, Liberty Tree, WESPAC foundation, Ctr. for Community & Labor Research, Center for Popular Economics, Guramylay, U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, Global-Local Links Project, Community Services United, Grassroots Economic Organizing, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Website & Resources

• Website: this site is a "first draft." We are in the process of working out collaboration with a couple of techie & design collectives and individuals. If you have such skills or interests, let us know. It would be great to build in the involvement of the tech community from the get go.

• We're in the process of developing talking points that will be targeted at different sectors, for example, labor, cooperatives, community development corporations, environmental justice, etc. We're starting with worker cooperatives and hope to have a sample that other sectors can work off of.

• - Book project: we're working on collecting papers, transcripts, summaries of the social solidarity economy workshops that we organized at the USSF.

Outreach & Publicity

• Emily Kawano talked about SEN at the "What's the Economy For, Anyway?" Conference. There was a lot of interest. Check out a great article written for Inter Press Service that gives a good plug for SEN. I got word of this through an Italian source! :

"Stemming the Trickle-Up Effect," Abra Pollock http://ipsnews.net/wap/news.asp?idnews=39594

• Emily also did a radio interview about SEN on Corporate Watchdog. To listen, click on this link:

• We need a logo, so if anyone has artistic talents, feel free. Maybe we could have a competition. Hmm, does anyone have any experience doing something like that?

World Social Forum Day of Action

Instead of holding a World Social Forum gathering, there will be a global day of action on Jan. 26, 2008. There are close to 2,000 organizations and individuals from all over the world who have signed on already! Sadly there are relatively few in from the U.S.

SEN decided to sign on and organize nationwide teach-ins about the solidarity economy. We'll be putting together a list of speakers, movies, workshops that will be available to bring to your community or organization. We'll also develop a tool-kit to do your own teach-in. If you're interested, please contact Emily Kawano.

Also, consider signing your organization up and under Network/Confederation, include Solidarity Economy Network - US. For more info about the Day of Action, and to sign on, see: http://www.wsf2008.net/index2.php?lb=0

That's it for now.

In solidarity,

Emily Kawano
Executive Director
Center for Popular Economics
(413) 545-0743
www.populareconomics.org