A lifetime of travel had brought me to Chile in the late 80s. A desire to study led me to study ecological economics at the Universidad Bolivariana in Santiago de Chile, founded by the Right Livelihood Award (1983), Manfred Max-Neef and his long-time collaborator, Antonio Elizalde Hevia. It was there that I took the course of Luis Razeto Migliaro who created the term Economia de la Solidaridad for Latin America, which would one day become the Solidarity Economy by traveling and developing according to the cultural, political and social contexts of different countries around the world.
One fine day in 2000, I came to settle in France with my small family and I was contacted by the Foundation for the Progress of Man, better known as FPH, to conduct electronic projects, a series of remote debates on themes related to the solidarity economy, in French, English and Spanish. Then to the technical coordination of the Pôle de Socio-Economie Solidaire (PSES), one of the main axes of the Alliance for Responsible, Plural and Solidarity World, the major international movement launched by the FPH in 2001. Multiple and varied meetings with wonderful people, Philippe Amouroux who was in charge of the coordination of the PSES, Laurent Fraisse, Marcos Arruda from Brazil, Yvon Poirier whom you all know, Judith Hitchman, Morgane Iserte, Nedda Angulo, Alfonso Cotera, Humberto Ortiz from Peru, Arturo Palma Torres, Jean-Louis Laville, Ben Quinones, Emily Kawano from SEN, François Soulard, and so many more, my list would be very, very long. People from all continents, who we met during international events and the effervescence of the debates.
World Social Forums, Porto Alegre, Mumbai, Globalization Meetings with RIPESS, Dakar or Luxembourg, for example. Privileged moments from which you came back full of energy and ready to find the solitude of your computer, but with the impression of being connected with the rest of the world.
The death of Philippe Amouroux was a very painful moment, other friends faded along the way, the incredible Yoko Kitazawa and her pink Barbie rain coat in the drizzle of Paris, Martine Theveniaut, so committed to the territory, Madeleine Hersent, so present in the cause of women and the SSE… It was the end of an era too.
Then, in 2011, the FPH asked me to create a resource site on the social and solidarity economy, the SSE, in the spirit of the other resource sites it supported. I learned Italian along the way in connection with the creation of the solidarity economy movement in Italy and I designed with the invaluable help of Vincent Calame, the socioeco.org website, in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. Ready to add more languages. I had taken up German after the meeting of RIPESS in Berlin and the embryo of an SSE movement there. RIPESS Europe was officially created in Barcelona in 2011 and it was quite naturally, at the initiative of the FPH, that RIPESS Europe approached the resource site socioeco.org and that I saw myself involved in the beautiful communication team, Juliette, Josette, Andrea while maintaining the autonomy of the management of the database. Here too, meetings during events have marked the way, the People’s Summit in Porto Alegre (2012), Berlin (2015), London (2015), Florence (2016), Athens (2017), Zagreb (2018), Villarceaux (several), the Forum of Transformative Economies in Barcelona (2020) and the pleasure of meeting the tireless friends of the REAS… while a privileged link continued with the RIPESS Intercontinental. Deep friendships were born, Josette Combes became a very dear friend.
Thousands of documents later and a dozen more languages in socioeco.org, I salute you all and thank you for this part of the road: Jason, Eric, Bruno, Berenice, Drazen, Ruby, Laura, Patricia, Laure and all those who accompanied me on this journey… I know that a dedicated team is taking over this activity that I have taken on with pleasure for all these years (Georgia, Maria, Andrea Ruby). To all of you, I wish you all the best for the future. Keep going, the world needs it.
In particular, I would like to thank the FPH for funding the deployment of ideas that it believes will be transformative in our society and for allowing me to be one of the elements of its dissemination over the years.
