By Jason Nardi
The passage from Solidarity Economy Districts to district Communities of Solidarity Economy was the main theme of the National Meeting of the Solidarity Economy (INES) held in Mira (VE) from September 30 to October 1, 2017 within the Festival Si Può Fare (“We Can Do It!”), preceded by the School of Solidarity Economy on “Weavers of Community Relations”.
From the afternoon of Wednesday 27 to Friday 29 September 2017, three days of study and exchanges between researchers and activists of the solidarity economy, with the aim of discussing on the topic of “Moving from Districts to District Communities”. The School of Solidarity Economy, organized by the Tavolo RES (Italian SE network), together with the Forum for the Commons of Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Italian Association for Degrowth is dedicated to community leaders, solidarity networkers, producer and consumer supply chain agreements, community maps, eco-museums and farm parks, students and citizens interested in themes of the solidarity economy.
The school started with Ina Praetorius’s seminar on the “Care Economy”, and ended with the urbanist Alberto Magnaghi’s “Community Maps” workshop. In the second part of Friday afternoon, an open meeting of the RES Table with the synthesis of the results of the preparatory process entitles “The Three Legs of the Solidarity Economy”.
The meetings continued on Saturday and Sunday with the 16th National Meeting of the Solidarity Economy (INES) divided into four sessions devoted to the transition from networks to communities and circular supply chains, to transforming the economy, citizenship and participatory democracy. The International Relations working group met and discussed further participation to the RIPESS and URGENCI networks.
The INES 2017 program is available at this link.
In the afternoon of Sunday October 1, a convergence meeting among various networks, associations and movements, aimed at the creation of an “ecosystem” to further work together, took place.
