Twenty-four activists and educators from five states met for two days at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee to learn about the Solidarity Economy and build relationships for future work together. The group included people working on immigrant rights, sustainability education, living wages, police brutality, the cradle to prison pipeline, using art for social change, alternatives to militarism, community building, sustainable economic development, youth leadership and more. More...

Towards the

Solidarity Economy:

A View from India

By InfoChange India

News & Features

http://www.infochangeindia.org

Photo: Brazil's Landless
Farmers Meet Venezuela Coop
Sugar Workers' Coop
Supports 4,300
Families at 48 Mills
By Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 11 (IPS) - The Harmony Agricultural Company has become Brazil’s largest worker-managed business in the solidarity economy. It provides employment for 4,300 families who work 26,000 hectares of land, and its main activity is producing sugar at 48 mills.

When the company was in crisis in 1993, the first reaction of the workers and their unions was the usual one of trying to ensure that the 2,300 workers who were dismissed received back pay and severance pay. But two years later, the unions took another approach.

Their goal was to win back the lost jobs and maintain the remaining ones, while continuing an activity essential to the economy of Catende, in the northeastern state of Pernambuco.

They applied for the owners of the company to be forced to declare bankruptcy, and took over the firm’s administration, under the supervision of the justice system. Since then, they have resumed sugar production and diversified into other agricultural and industrial activities.

El Grupo Red de Economía Solidaria del Perú ("The Peru Solidarity Economy Network Group") is a civila association made up of social enterprises, non-governmental organizations, religious organizations, entities of international cooperation working in Peru, and dedicated people that promote practices of associative economy and relationships of solidarity within the economy.

FBES is a national organization for articulation, debates, the elaboration of strategies and the mobilization of the solidarity economy movement in Brazil. (website in Portuguese only)

RedLASES is an open space for dialog and inspired articluation between solidarity economy intiatives and initiatives for the radicalization of democracy in the Latin America. (website in Spanish only)

The "Rete di Economia Solidale" (Solidarity Economy Network) project is an experiment towards the construction of an "other" economy, part of thousands of experiences of solidarity economy activity in Italy. (website in Italian only)

Under the theme of "How do we want to produce and live? The Solidarity-Based Economy in a Globalized Capitalism," the First National Solidarity Economy Congress (with international participation) was held in Berlin in 2006.

Website of the 2007 event where Asian socially responsible investors (SRIs) meet with socially responsible Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to discuss new initiatives such as Fair Trade, solidarity-based Supply chains, ethical investments, and microfinance, which are driven by the triple bottom line of sustainability, social responsibility, and environmental resilience.

The North American Network for the Solidarity Economy (NANSE) is a network of individuals and other networks in North America - including the Caribbean - that represents nearly 10,000 organizations. Members include co-ops, specialized networks, research institutions and a range of organizations involved in community economic development and social enterprise development.