During the UNIVERSSE 2017 – 4th European Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) congress in Athens (9-11 June 2017), the “1st European meeting of alternative, independent, cooperative media and SSE” took place, bringing together representatives of around 20 media initiatives from 10 European countries (from Greece to Portugal) and people working in SSE organisations and networks.

The exchange of experiences and discussions showed that all participating media initiatives  – though different in business model and approach (from printed and online media, to journalist collective and media activists) share the values promoted by the solidarity economy and want to offer a different narration of the world than the corporate media’s, and inform on how positive solutions to the economic, financial and ecological crisis, led by citizens and collective or cooperative enterprises, are emerging all over.

The participants agreed to work on concrete collaborations, having a common interest in cooperating together to strengthen each other, beyond the local  and national dimension, and where possible to network with the solidarity economy.

Among the forms of collaboration discussed there were the following:

– Find opportunities and spaces to get to know each other (and share information about governance, way of working, etc.)

– Content sharing and co-production [a first proposal of themes was made]

– Common crowdfunding and co-funding

– Peer-training initiatives (starting with webinars)

– Confront business models and solutions

– Media education

– Media partnerships with SSE networks and events

– Alliances with Independent publishers

– Periodical meetings to work on concrete projects and collaborations

– RIPESS Europe to help facilitate, network and promote the media

– Socioeco.org to aggregate articles from different media in the journalism of solutions map

– Communication tools and spaces for sharing and coordination (on a rotating basis)

Athens, 11th of July 2017

 

Here is the list of media organisations and initiatives who are interested in building the network