Athens, October 10-12 2014 – The #Festival4sce – or Festival for Solidarity and Cooperative Economy – is attracting more and more initiatives: for the third consecutive year at the Cultural Centre of Helliniko, for the first time this year foreign initiatives will be participating apart from the Greek ones. Including participants form the RIPESS Europe member networks, like Jordi Ribas (XES).
With the slogan “Another World Already Exists”, the Programme Of The Festival is very rich and inviting. Visit the Crowdfunding Campaign to support the self-financed event. And the Facebook, Twitter and Youtube social network feeds…
“In a Greece of social, economic and environmental crisis, where the state social structures are collapsing and the commons are under threat, where unemployment and economic distress are a reality for many of us… those to blame for the scam they call “the crisis” have not been held responsible for their crimes and the rotten promise of magical growth is still a repeated mantra.
But not all of us are sitting idle and settling for empty promises. On the contrary, we are participating more and more actively in groups and networks of solidarity, alternative exchange and cooperative economy, giving life to a world where human values count much more than profit making.
These projects, which are expanding across all over the country, do not only represent a way of survival in our everyday struggles, but also represent a society that has rejected the capitalistic system of values.
We, the groups that co-organize and participate in the Festival of Solidarity & Cooperative Economy, do not expect to cash our action in for votes, future earnings or social recognition, like other charitable or (non)social organisations that advertise their so-called “social action” do.
Our ultimate goal is to create social, and hence economic, structures that are based on people and not on profit. We don’t want to return to the Pre-Memorandum* times; we foster instead self-organisation, self-sufficiency and true prosperity, regardless of economic indicators.
The large-scale participation in the first and the second Festival left a smile on our faces and a lot of food for thought as well as a strong willing for more action. Today we are preparing for the continuation of this effort, expanding frontiers and aiming at networking and exchanging experiences and concerns among groups, but also informing citizens about a different world, a world that is not only feasible and imperative, but one that already exists.”
