Article from El Salto Diario, 1 May 2021, by Guillem Subiracha
As feminisms have taught us, what is not seen does not seem to exist. For this reason, this year the Social and Solidarity Economy wants to put the emphasis of the Social Audit and Social Balance Campaign on the very value of having a tool that allows us to make visible and show what we are. How else can we show the benefits of this social, sustainable and solidarity-based economic model? How else can we achieve a dialogue with the Public Administrations, in accordance with our contributions to the common good? What guarantee do we have that those who are committed to responsible and critical consumption in the Social and Solidarity Economy will be able to do so?
In order to have a collective picture of the contributions of the Solidarity Economy, we need to have data and share them, the only way to show the alternative economic model that we jointly shape. It is also an essential practice for the visibility of the Social Market (Mercado Social), as well as a key tool to achieve the recognition of administrations and citizens. On the other hand, the individual reports offered to the entities are of great help to them, for their self-evaluation and continuous improvement as well as at the level of certifications and external communication of their practices and values.
Thanks to this practice of self-analysis, last year we were able to learn about the impacts of covid-19, we were able to find out that 69% of SSE organisations had to adapt their activities to the context of not being able to leave home or, in some cases, even stop their activities due to the impossibility of carrying them out in this context. Fortunately, in the face of this pandemic scenario, “emotional support within the teams and the socialisation of personal situations have been key elements in accompanying the difficult situation caused by home confinement. The importance of sharing emotions in the work environment has been brought to the forefront in order to generate working environments based on care and empathy. A key contribution of the feminist perspective to organisational culture”, as stated in the covid-19 Impact Analysis report of the Social Audit/Balance 2020 campaign.
(…) we will continue to give priority to obtaining data that will allow us to analyse our practices from a gender perspective, as we have been doing for the last three years.
The internalisation of this feminist perspective has probably guided us in the design of this year’s campaign, where we borrowed the metaphor of the iceberg of feminist economics to remind us, as we pointed out at the beginning, that we run the risk of being submerged in the waters of capitalism and its tools of propagation if we are not able to make ourselves visible and come to the surface. For this reason, we make this free application, with nearly a decade of experience, available to any company with the will to transform, to measure our practices and to be able to transmit, in an exercise of unparalleled transparency, the many contributions that our Social and Solidarity Economy companies make in terms of gender equality, promotion of decent work, environmental sustainability, commitment to the common good and commitment to the environment.
Thus, from REAS Red de Redes we invite the entities of the Social and Solidarity Economy (both partners and non-partners) to carry out a Social Audit/Balance and join this exercise of transparency and self-evaluation that allows us to make ourselves visible and differentiate ourselves from the capitalist economy. So, show us your heart? #MuESStrateMuéstranos!
