In 2021, Ripess Europe celebrates its 10th anniversary!
As part of this celebration, and in order to honour the network and its members in particular, Ripess Europe will be conducting interviews, throughout the year, with the people who have brought it to life since its creation. Follow us on this European tour of the network’s members!
This time, we have an appointment with Françoise Wautiez, in charge of Socioeco.org, an online library dedicated to the SSE and one of the members of the Ripess Eu communication group.
Hello Françoise, can you tell us a bit more about you and your organisation?
Ecosol was created under the impulse of the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the constitution of a network around the solidarity economy within the framework of the Alliance for a responsible, plural and solidarity-based world in 2001. Then I was in charge of setting up and maintaining a resource site on the social and solidarity economy, socioeco.org, in five main languages. The site is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.
What does it mean to you to be a member of Ripess Eu?
I was attached to RIPESS Europe shortly after its inauguration in Barcelona in 2011 and to Ripess Intercontinental because of the international vocation of socioeco.org. I also participate in the communication team with Juliette Bertrand, Josette Combes and Jason Nardi through my documentary monitoring and the production of RIPESS Europe newsletters. Socioeco.org is an important resource and a place of visibility for the different commissions (education, gender), for the European projects and for the continents.
What does the social and solidarity economy mean to you?
For me, the solidarity economy is a vision of the world based on values: social justice, solidarity, feminism, cooperation, protection of the planet. In the economic field, it touches all stages from production, which can be fair and sustainable, to marketing (fair trade), financing (ethical), consumption (responsible), waste management (less waste, recovery, restoration, recycling), etc. The list of initiatives where solidarity can be found is endless. From a social and political point of view, it is a question of always putting the person at the centre in a context of respect for the planet and putting the “C” factor of Luis Razeto, the Chilean thinker (the “C” of collaboration, cooperation, convivencia) at the centre of every decision.
Browsing the web in search of training, public policies, educational tools, initiatives, legislations, theoretical texts; seeing the United Nations take an interest in the SSE, suggests that this world which functions on completely opposite bases to that of capitalism, this world is there, it is a question of making it visible, of reinforcing the networks from the local to the global, of rethinking our daily life. The commitment of young people in the SSE is essential. But the climate emergency is threatening us and the decision-makers are not up to the task of taking action.
If you had to choose one memory since your integration, what would it be?
I have several, the effervescence of Barcelona, the passion of Athens, the meetings around the independent media, a place of great encounters….
