Young People Have the Power to Rally Others to Create Positive Change

(Photo: Light Brigading/flickr/cc)

by David Suzuki, Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/19/young-people-have-power-rally-others-create-positive-change

David Suzuki is a well-known Canadian scientist, broadcaster and environmental activist.

When she was just 12 years old, my daughter Severn gave a speech at the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

She spoke with such conviction that delegates were moved to tears. It was one of my proudest moments as a father.

More than 20 years later, Severn is the mother of two young children, and the video of her speech is still making the rounds, inspiring people around the world. Its popularity speaks to the power the young have to affect the world’s most pressing issues.

More than half the world’s population is under 30, a demographic now at the forefront of international decision-making and some of Canada’s most powerful environmental changes.

Across the nation, youth are thinking critically about how we can become better stewards of our vast landscapes and spectacular wildlife and protect the air, water, soil and diversity of nature that keep us healthy and alive. They’re standing up for strong environmental protection and a saner approach to resource management in their own communities.

Take Halifax resident Stephen Thomas, an engineer in his 20s. He’s been recognized as a driving force for our nation’s clean energy future. If You Build It, a project he co-founded, mobilizes volunteers to construct renewable energy projects, including wind turbines and solar-powered generators. He’s also catalyzed large-scale, community-owned wind projects in Nova Scotia and spearheaded Dalhousie University’s student campaign for fossil fuel divestment.

Vanessa Gray, a 22-year-old member of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, mobilized other young people to campaign against Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline proposal to transport oilsands bitumen through Sarnia, Ontario, to Montreal for export. She continues to speak out about refinery pollution and host “toxic tours” of Canada’s Chemical Valley, where 63 petrochemical plants surround her community.

Some young leaders are taking up the David Suzuki Foundation’s call to support the right to a healthy environment in their towns. In December, after attending a Foundation Blue Dot Tour event, 10-year-old Victoria resident Rupert Yakelashek led a successful charge to have his city adopt a declaration giving citizens the right to clean air, water and food, and to participate in decisions that affect their environment.

Ta’Kaiya Blaney, a 13-year-old from B.C.’s Tla’Amin First Nation, followed a path similar to my daughter’s, speaking at the UN Rio +20 conference in 2012 when she was just 11. She’s also gaining recognition as the visionary behind the Salish Sea Youth Foundation and for speaking, writing and singing in defense of a healthy future for animals, humans, plants and ecosystems.

She incorporates environmental messages into her songs, as she did on the Blue Dot Tour. “In my culture it’s a fact, and an understanding of life, that everything is connected, and we were put on this earth to be stewards and caretakers of the environment,” she writes.

Young leaders are also at the forefront of Idle No More, one of the largest Indigenous mass movements in Canadian history. What began in 2012 as teach-ins in Saskatchewan to protest parliamentary bills that would erode Indigenous sovereignty and environmental protections has changed the social and political landscape of Canada.

These young environmental champions share a commitment to their communities and to the world. They know that young people have the power to rally others to create positive change. And when people gather around a common cause, magic happens.

Although many young leaders aren’t yet old enough to vote, they’ll be left to clean up messes from decisions made today. We owe it to them to think more carefully about the world we want to leave to their generation.

National non-profit The Starfish Canada, co-founded by David Suzuki Foundation public engagement specialist Kyle Empringham, celebrates young people with its Top 25 Environmentalists Under 25 program.

Every year, 25 youth are recognized for their efforts to create environmental change. The group recognized is diverse, from community gardeners and outdoor recreationists to scientists and advocates. Thanks to them, the program continues to showcase positive change across the country.

If you know a young leader who deserves national recognition, nominate him or her for The Starfish Canada’s Top 25 Environmentalists Under 25. It could help inspire others to change the world.

VIDEO: Japan’s Underground Automated Bike Parking is Something Every Country Should Have

by Inigo del Castillo, Lost at E Minor: http://www.lostateminor.com/2015/02/20/japans-underground-automated-bike-parking-something-every-country/ 



While the rest of us struggle with bike chains and bike theft, the Japanese have already solved these problems with underground bike parking-lots managed by robots!

In the video above, a bike is placed onto an elevator and gets sucked into a shaft full of bicycle holders. A contraption neatly parks it until the owner comes back. Convenient, right?

Designed by engineering company Giken Seisakusho, the underground bike parking lots can store up to 204 standard bicycles and can park one in just 13 seconds. Cyclists can use the facility using a rental card that costs 1,800 yen per month (around $15).

The innovative technology has been in main cities like Tokyo and Osaka for a few years, but it’s only now that we get to see how this awesome system actually works.

Via Design Boom

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About the Author

Inigo is a writer and graphic designer from Manila, Philippines. He is a soldier of love who will carry you on his strong back of awesomeness when the zombie apocalypse arrives.

What is Placemaking?

Places and Spaces (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Project for Public Spaces: http://www.pps.org/reference/what_is_placemaking/

"Placemaking is both an overarching idea and a hands-on tool for improving a neighborhood, city or region. It has the potential to be one of the most transformative ideas of this century".

What if we built our communities around places? Placemaking is a quiet movement that reimagines public spaces as the heart of every community, in every city.

It’s a transformative approach that inspires people to create and improve their public places. Placemaking strengthens the connection between people and the places they share.

Placemaking is how we collectively shape our public realm to maximize shared value. Rooted in community-based participation, Placemaking involves the planning, design, management and programming of public spaces.

More than just creating better urban design of public spaces, Placemaking facilitates creative patterns of activities and connections (cultural, economic, social, ecological) that define a place and support its ongoing evolution. Placemaking is how people are more collectively and intentionally shaping our world, and our future on this planet.

With the increasing awareness that our human environment is shaping us, Placemaking is how we shape humanity’s future. While environmentalism has challenged human impact on our planet, it is not the planet that is threatened but humanity’s ability to live viably here.

Placemaking is building both the settlement patterns, and the communal capacity, for people to thrive with each other and our natural world.

It takes a place to create a community, and a community to create a place

An effective Placemaking process capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration, and potential, ultimately creating good public spaces that promote people’s health, happiness, and well being. When we asked visitors to pps.org what Placemaking means to them, responses suggested that this process is essential - even sacred - to people who truly care about the places in their lives.

True Placemaking begins at the smallest scale.

The PPS Placemaking process evolved out of our work with William “Holly” Whyte in the 1970s and still involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work, and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations. This information is then used to create a common vision for that place.

The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale, do-able improvements that can immediately bring benefits to public spaces and the people who use them.

For us, Placemaking is both a process and a philosophy. It takes root when a community expresses needs and desires about places in their lives, even if there is not yet a clearly defined plan of action. The yearning to unite people around a larger vision for a particular place is often present long before the word “Placemaking” is ever mentioned.

Once the term is introduced, however, it enables people to realize just how inspiring their collective vision can be, and allows them to look with fresh eyes at the potential of parks, downtowns, waterfronts, plazas, neighborhoods, streets, markets, campuses and public buildings. It sparks an exciting re-examination of everyday settings and experiences in our lives.

When you focus on place, you do everything differently

Unfortunately the way our communities are built today has become so institutionalized that community stakeholders seldom have a chance to voice ideas and aspirations about the places they inhabit.

Placemaking breaks through this by showing planners, designers, and engineers how to move beyond their habit of looking at communities through the narrow lens of single-minded goals or rigid professional disciplines. The first step is listening to best experts in the field - the people who live, work and play in a place.

Experience has shown us that when developers and planners welcome as much grassroots involvement as possible, they spare themselves a lot of headaches.

Common problems like traffic-dominated streets, little-used parks, and isolated, underperforming development projects can be avoided by embracing the Placemaking perspective that views a place in its entirety, rather than zeroing in on isolated fragments of the whole.

Since 1975, PPS has acted as an advocate and resource center for Placemaking, continually making the case that a collaborative community process that pays attention to issues on the small scale is the best approach in creating and revitalizing public spaces. Indeed, cities fail and succeed as the place scale, but it is still this scale that goes ignored.

Cities ultimately fail or succeed at the “place” scale

Key Principles of Placemaking

A Placemaking approach provides communities with the springboard they need to revitalize their communities. To start, we draw upon the 11 Principles of Placemaking, which have grown out of our experiences working with communities in 43 countries and 50 U.S. and 3000 communties.

These are guidelines that help communities integrate diverse opinions into a vision, then translate that vision into a plan and program of uses, and finally see that the plan is properly implemented.

Community input is essential to the Placemaking process, but so is an understanding of a particular place and of the ways that great places foster successful social networks and initiatives.

Using the 11 Principles and other tools we’ve developed for improving places (such as the Power of 10 and the Place Diagram, below) we’ve helped citizens bring immense changes to their communities–sometimes more than stakeholders ever dreamed possible.

The Place Diagram is one of the tools PPS has developed to help communities evaluate places. The inner ring represents key attributes, the middle ring intangible qualities, and the outer ring measurable data.

Improving public spaces and the lives of people who use them means finding the patience to take small steps, to truly listen to people, and to see what works best, eventually turning a group vision into the reality of a great public place.

Placemaking is not a new idea

The concepts behind Placemaking got traction in the 1960s, when visionaries like Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte (who was Jacobs’ Fortune Magazine editor that got her to write Death and Life of Great American Cities) offered groundbreaking ideas about designing cities that catered to people, not just to cars and shopping centers. Their work focused on the importance of lively neighborhoods and inviting public spaces.

Jane Jacobs advocated citizen ownership of streets through the now-famous idea of “eyes on the street.” Holly Whyte emphasized essential elements for creating social life in public spaces.

Applying the wisdom of Jacobs, Whyte, and others, PPS gradually developed a comprehensive Placemaking approach for helping communities make better public spaces beginning in 1975.

The term can be heard in many settings - not only by citizens committed to grassroots community improvement but by planners and developers who use it as a fashionable “brand” that implies authenticity and quality even when their projects don’t always live up to that promise. But using “Placemaking” to label a process that really isn’t rooted in public participation or result in lively, genuine communities dilutes the potential value.

PPS first started consistent use of the term in the mid-nineties and first published a book with a definition of the term in 1997.

It takes a broader set of skills than any one discipline can offer to create a place

Placemaking is at the heart of PPS’s work and mission, but we do not trademark it as our property. It belongs to anyone who is sincere about creating great places by drawing on the collective wisdom, energy and action of those who live, work and play there.

We do feel, however, it is our responsibility to continue to protect and perpetuate the community-driven, bottom-up approach that Placemaking describes. Placemaking requires and supports great leadership and action on all levels, often allowing leaders to not have the answers but allow an even bolder process to unfold.

We believe that the public’s attraction to the essential qualities of Placemaking will ensure that the term does not lose its original meaning or promise. Making a place is not the same as constructing a building, designing a plaza, or developing a commercial zone. When people enjoy a place for its special social and physical attributes, and when they are allowed to influence decision-making about that space, then you see genuine Placemaking in action.

Placemaking grows into an international movement

As more communities engage in Placemaking and more professionals call their work “Placemaking,” it is now essential to preserve the integrity of Placemaking.

A great public space cannot be measured simply by physical attributes; it must serve people as a vital place where function is put ahead of form. PPS encourages everyone - citizens and professionals alike - to focus on places and the people who use them.

Placemaking strikes a balance between the built, the social, the ecological and even the spiritual qualities of a place. Fortunately, we can all be inspired by the examples of many great Placemakers who have worked to promote this vision through the years.

Through the development of a Placemaking Leadership Council PPS is working to support a broad network to support the further evolution of Placemaking and build its potential impact as a movement. Through bringing together our partnerships with UN Habitat and the Ax:son Johnson create the Future Of Places conference series to support the prominence and impact of Placemaking internationally, with a focus on developing cities.

Placemaking belongs to everyone: its message and mission is bigger than any one person or organization. PPS remains dedicated to supporting the Placemaking movement as a “backbone organization”, growing the network and offering our resources and experiences to all the other Placemakers out there.

What Placemaking Is - and what it isn’t 

Placemaking IS:

• Community-driven
• Visionary
• Function before form
• Adaptable
• Inclusive
• Focused on creating destinations
• Flexible
• Culturally aware
• Ever changing
• Trans-disciplinary
• Context-led
• Transformative
• Inspiring
• Collaborative
• Sociable

Placemaking ISN’T:

• Imposed from above
• Reactive
• Design-driven
• A blanket solution
• Exclusionary
• Monolithic development
• Overly accommodating of the car
• One-size-fits-all
• Static
• Discipline-driven
• Privatized
• One-dimensional
• Dependent on regulatory controls
• A cost/benefit analysis
• Project-focused
• A quick fix

PPS Placemaking Resources mentioned in this article:

11 Principles of Placemaking
The Power of Ten
Placemaker Profiles
“What is Placemaking?” – Top Survey Responses
Toward Place Governance: What If We Reinvented Civic Infrastructure Around Placemaking?

The Promise of “Open Co-operativism”

Photo credit: The Co-operative / Foter / CC BY

by David Bollier, Article cross-posted from Bollier.org, Shareable: http://www.shareable.net/blog/the-promise-of-“open-co-operativism”

Is it possible to imagine a new sort of synthesis or synergy between the emerging peer production and commons movement on the one hand, and growing, innovative elements of the co-operative and solidarity economy movements on the other?

That was the animating question behind a two-day workshop, “Toward an Open Co-operativism,” held in August, 2014 and now chronicled in a new report by UK co-operative expert Pat Conaty and me (Pat is a Fellow of the New Economics Foundation and a Research Associate of Co-operatives UK, and attended the workshop).

The workshop was convened because the commons movement and peer production share a great deal with co-operatives ... but they also differ in profound ways. Both share a deep commitment to social cooperation as a constructive social and economic force. Yet both draw upon very different histories, cultures, identities and aspirations in formulating their visions of the future.

There is great promise in the two movements growing more closely together, but also significant barriers to that occurring.

The workshop explored this topic, as captured by the subtitle of the report: “A New Social Economy Based on Open Platforms, Co-operative Models and the Commons,” hosted by the Commons Strategies Group in Berlin, Germany, on August 27 and 28, 2014.

The workshop was supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, with assistance with the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation of France.

Below, the Introduction to the report followed by the Contents page. You can download a pdf of the full report (28 pages) here. The entire report is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) 3.0 license, so feel free to re-post it.

From the Introduction

For people who participate in commons, peer production, or co-operatives, the emerging economy presents a frustrating paradox in the enormous mismatch between cooperative culture on the one hand and the organizational forms, on the other hand, that can sustain it and advance the general well-being of society.

New forms of peer production are creating common pools of knowledge, code and design and entirely new socio-economic-technical sectors of production and governance. This sprawling, eclectic realm based on free software, open knowledge, open design and open hardware relies upon social collaboration and sharing, and aspires to become a sector of self-sustaining and autonomous commons.

Unfortunately, because its economic forms are generally embedded in capitalist economies - dependent on closed intellectual property, venture capital funding, for-profit corporate structures, and so forth - the new “open models” are generally subordinated to hyper-competitive markets with capitalist dynamics.

Notwithstanding brash claims for the liberating potential of the “sharing economy,” peer production on open platforms may simply replace the more classic forms of proprietary capitalism with a commons/corporate hybrid that commandeers various commons to serve the interests of capital.

Meanwhile, the co-operative movement in many parts of the world faces its own challenges in coming to terms with contemporary technologies and the political economy.

A number of large co-operatives now resemble global corporations in their market behaviors, organizational cultures and management styles. If they are not fending off threats of privatization, their managers and policies function at a distance from co-op members, who often no longer participate actively or take part in a shared culture.

As for smaller co-ops, many have been shunted to the margins of both the market and society by larger dominant forces. Thus without creative solutions they are unable to compete in large, concentrated markets or embrace networking technologies that might enhance their co-operative powers.

For these and other reasons, the co-operative movement, despite its illustrious history and impressive organizational and financial models, no longer inspires the popular social imagination or has the élan and dramatic impact that it did in, say, the 1890s, 1920s, or 1970s.

The power of global capital and markets, digital technologies and consumerist culture has operated perversely in ways that have reined in the ambitions of some parts of the co-operative movement.

In recent years, however, there has been a renewed sense of purpose and confidence across the international co-operative sector. The United Nations declared 2012 “International Year of Co-operatives,” and in the same year, a rejuvenated International Co-operative Alliance adopted an ambitious blueprint for a “co-operative decade” intended to establish the business and ecological leadership of the co-operative model, in which ownership rests with those most closely involved in the business.

There is also a growing receptivity to the idea of open co-operativism, as seen in Robin Murray’s book, Co-operation in the Age of Google - a theme that echoes the cardinal first principle of the co-operative movement, “open and inclusive membership.”

These are welcome developments because a decline of co-operatives diminishes the general welfare of society. The general public increasingly has few alternatives to large, predatory corporations whose anti-social behaviors are often sanctioned by captive legislators and state bureaucracies.

While the “social economy” is gaining ground in many parts of the world and some commercial sectors, its benefits are often killed in the cradle or kept within strict limits. The market/state duopoly, a partnership that divides responsibility for production and governance while pushing an agenda of relentless economic growth and neoliberal policies, continues largely unchecked.

All of this prompts the question: Is it possible to imagine a new sort of synthesis or synergy between the emerging peer production and commons movement on the one hand, and growing, innovative elements of the co-operative and solidarity economy movements on the other?

Both share a deep commitment to social cooperation as a constructive social and economic force. Yet both draw upon very different histories, cultures, identities and aspirations in formulating their visions of the future. There is both great promise in the two movements growing more closely together, but also significant barriers to that occurring.


Photo credit: Alexander Rabb / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND.

Exploring the Possibilities of an Open Co-operativism

A core question of the workshop was: How can social cooperation in contemporary life be structured to better serve the interests of the co-operators/commoners and society in general, in a techno/political economy that currently insists upon appropriating surplus value for private capital?

Commoners tend to approach this question from a different perspective, history and focus than many in the co-operative movement. That’s because commoners tend to occupy a space outside of markets, for example, while co-operatives are generally market entities themselves. Commoners tend to have few institutional resources or revenue streams, but instead rely upon powerful networks of collaboration based on open platforms.

By contrast, co-operatives today constitute a substantial segment of modern economies. There are more than one billion co-op members in 2.6 million co-operatives around the world, and they generate an estimated US $2.98 trillion in annual revenue. If this economy were a united country, it would be the fifth largest economy in the world, after Germany. Yet the transformative impact of this economic power is less than its size would suggest.

Where there is a strong co-operative presence, such as local banking in Germany, housing in Sweden or farming in India, co-ops can change market outcomes. But where they are a minority competitor, unless they are innovators, many co-ops have simply adapted to the competitive practices and ethic of the capitalist economy and politics, rather than struggling to re-invent “co-operative commonwealth” models for our time.

Their influence in national political life is no longer as progressive and innovative as it once was, nor as focused on improving the lot of ordinary citizens. There are many reasons: the scale of older co-operative enterprises, the distance between managers and beneficiary-members, the backward-looking terms of existing legislation for co-ops, and the cultural affinities between “new co-ops” and the social and solidarity economy movement.

The purpose of this workshop was to explore the opportunities for a convergence of efforts between commoners and cooperators, especially in the blending the institutional and financial know-how of co-operatives with the explosive power of digital technologies and open networks.

Can we find new ways to blend the innovative, participatory ethic of peer production with the historical experience and wisdom of the cooperative movement? What fruitful convergences between these two forms of social cooperation might we identify and cultivate? What are the possibilities for achieving new forms of “cooperative accumulation,” in which people’s contributions to shared commons would be coupled with value-added services that generate incomes and in-kind provisioning for cooperators/commoners?

A project of open co-operativism would address two important, unresolved issues: 1) the problem of livelihoods in a digital commons economy (how can the economy reproduce itself and inaugurate a different social and economic logic if everyone works without payment?); and 2) the challenge of co-operatives and solidarity economies in leveraging the enormous potential of the new information and communications technologies, and avoiding subordination to the logic and discipline of capital.

“Cooperative accumulation” could occupy a space between commons that have limited or no engagement with markets, and capitalist enterprises that seek to extract private profits and accumulate capital.

This intermediary form, open co-operativism, could constitute a new sector in which commoners might pool resources, allocate them fairly and sustainably, and earn livelihoods as members of cooperatives - more or less outside of conventional capitalist markets. What we envisage here is the creation and nurturing of new types of non-capitalist or post-capitalist markets that re-embeds them in social communities and accountability structures.

The key, of course, is how to conceptualize and implement this convergence. As we will see below, a number of promising ideas have been suggested, such as co-operative entrepreneurs co-producing commons; coalitions of ethical entrepreneurs using copyright-based licenses to create zones of production protected from capital and conventional markets; and new models of local, distributed production linked to globally shared knowledge networks.

Other ideas remain intriguing but underdeveloped, such as the potential role that co-operative governance might play in commons-based peer production and, conversely, the ways in which self-governance in digital sectors might be applied in the co-operative and social solidarity economy.

Since this report is an account of a workshop dialogue, there are many different perspectives represented, many suggestive but incomplete ideas - and no clear blueprint for how to move forward. It is our hope, however, that this report will stimulate useful inquiry, debate, innovation, and a new convergence of movements.

Please get the full report here.

People Power, the Solution to Climate Inaction

by Rob McCreath, Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/11/people-power-solution-climate-inaction

 

Global warming protest, Stockholm, Sweden. The sign says "Warning - climate chaos" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nothing is more important to farmers like me than the weather. It affects the growth and quality of our crops and livestock, and has a major impact on global food supply.

The world’s weather is being messed up by global warming, mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, which releases heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

 

If your bank lends money to coal, oil and gas projects, then take your business to one that doesn’t. It will put a smile on your face.

Every national science organisation in the developed world agrees that global warming is real and caused by human activities. That’s good enough for me.

If we keep on burning coal, oil and gas at ‘business as usual’ levels, our grandchildren will inhabit a planet some 5 degrees Celsius hotter by the end of the century - rendering large parts of it uninhabitable, including many currently densely populated areas, which will be under water due to melting glaciers and ice caps.

The impacts on farming in Australia (and everywhere else) of such a rise in temperature would be very severe indeed.

To avoid such a bleak future, we simply must stop putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. If our politicians had any common sense, they would change quickly to renewable energy, but sadly they are captives of the fossil fuel industry that funds their re-election campaigns.

Just look at the Nationals, who in spite of claiming to represent farmers, this month declared donations of 30,000 dollars from oil & gas company Santos, 25,000 from coal miner Peabody, and 50,000 dollars from prominent climate change denier and coal & oil company director Ian Plimer.

So, for the sake of future generations, we have to make this change happen ourselves, and the best way to do this is to disrupt the business model of companies trying to make money from fossil fuels by pulling the financial rug out from underneath them.

It’s called divestment, which is simply the opposite of investment. Here’s how it works. If you’ve got shares in fossil fuel companies, then sell them and invest in something that won’t wreck the planet. If your super fund invests in fossil fuels, then transfer your money to a fund that doesn’t. If your bank lends money to coal, oil and gas projects, then take your business to one that doesn’t. It will put a smile on your face.

The global movement to divest from fossil fuels is gaining momentum, and the more people that take part, the better it works. Share prices (just like wheat and cattle prices) are set by supply and demand, so as more people sell, the price falls.

When a company’s share price falls far enough, it finds it more difficult to borrow money, with which to fund its next coal mine. Take oil and gas company Santos, for example. Due mainly to the recent plunge in oil prices, in the past six months its share price has dropped by almost 50%.

As a result, the company has announced plans to cut back on expenditure and reduce its operations. On the flip side, the more money that flows into companies involved in renewable energy, energy efficiency and green technology, the faster they will grow and the sooner we can put a lid on runaway climate change.

A brave new world awaits. Let’s divest together and change the future!

Global Divestment Day will be taking place on Feb. 13-14. Hundreds of events spanning six continents will be taking place. Join an event near you. For more information visit: gofossilfree.org

 

© 2015 IPS North America

Rob McCreath is a farmer in Queensland, Australia.

How One Neighborhood in Seoul Sparked a Movement of Urban Villages

by Cat Johnson, Shareable: http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-one-neighborhood-in-seoul-sparked-a-movement-of-urban-villages

What began as a childcare coop in Seoul, South Korea has grown into a cooperative, urban village and sparked a national movement of urban villages.

In 1994, when city officials threatened to remove trees from the top of Mt. Sungmi, in Mapo-gu, Seoul for the creation of a water facility, a group of neighbors joined forces to oppose the plan. By banding together, a community was created.

After defeating the plan for the facility, the community continued to organize, eventually becoming the Sungmisan Village which encompasses a one-kilometer radius at the base of the mountain and now connects over 700 families.

The first project for the village was a childcare cooperative for village families. Following the success of the childcare coop, villagers launched a consumer coop in 2001 for purchasing eco-friendly goods, and created community clubs for hiking, farming, parenting, studying, photography, and more.

They started hosting music events, festivals, and theatrical productions. The village stresses social interaction and prioritizes taking care of its elders.


A gathering of some Sungmisan villagers

In 2004, the community opened Sungmisan Village School, the first village school in Seoul. A community-driven alternative to traditional education, the school focuses on hands-on learning from other villagers as an adjunct to a classroom environment.

Students have regular school staff, but they also learn about organic farming, ecological responsibility, trades, skills, and our relationship to the earth and each other, from community members.

Offering elementary through high school education, the school connects students with potters and other craftspeople, farmers, builders, writers, musicians, and more. In an overview of the school, principal Park Bok Sun explains:

"The villagers feel that the school is their school because they are involved. Children know all teachers well. It’s not just about learning information. They can see how a potter makes pottery, exhibits, sells and does bookkeeping. Imagine what a vivid example it is! The teacher isn’t someone who just comes to class, teaches few things then runs away to his home and no one knows where the teacher lives.
"The children can understand alternative farming by learning what is organic, why it’s needed, and what is distribution connecting production and consumption. Furthermore, they can learn about solidarity of the people in the world by learning how people’s trade occurs.
"The children can learn about organic, ecological activity and fair trade. They learn the significance of the work their parents and adults in their neighborhood do. Then they learn how their table is connected to alternative life. They also learn that they are participating in planning an alternative life. That is a great experience."

The idea for the village school was born of concerns about traditional education. Parents wondered why schools looked like prisons, and how they could draw from the wealth of skills and experience already present in the community create a different kind of school. The vision they held was of an organically-designed school that grows and shifts as the village evolves.


Sungmisan Village School focuses on hands-on eduction and community-building

With a focus on sustainability, healthy food and connectedness, village schools are more than educational institutions - they’re hubs for learning, sharing, growing and community-building.

Sungmisan Village has inspired numerous urban villages around Seoul. City government officials actively support the creation of more villages through the Seoul Community Support Center.

Urban villages rekindle a lost sense of community and, through village schools, provide a way for young people to grow up in a hands-on, educational community rather than an overly-competitive and isolating learning environment.

“It is of great significance that we created a village school in the city,” writes principal Park. “This is part of dreaming an alternative life and making it come true one by one.”
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Follow @CatJohnson on Twitter

Red State, Red Power: Nebraska’s Publicly-Owned Electricity System

by bellacaledonia: http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2015/02/02/red-state-red-power-nebraskas-publicly-owned-electricity-system/

Following from recent discussions on Bella about public ownership of energy companies, this by Thoma M Hanna.  

Nebraska’s energy is all publicly owned, yet it blows away the myth that public ownership is inherently inefficient, bureaucratic or unresponsive.

Around the world, people often assume that in the United States, home to a no-holds-barred version of “free market” capitalism, private ownership operates more or less across the board.

 

There is, however, a rich and robust history and experience of public ownership throughout the country - often found in the least expected of places. For instance, there is one state where every single resident and business receives electricity from a public or community-owned institution rather than a for-profit corporation. 

 

It is not a famously liberal state like Vermont or Massachusetts. Rather, it is conservative Nebraska, with its two Republican Senators and two (out of three) Republican members of Congress, that has embraced the complete socialization of energy distribution. The ‘red states’ - named after the color now given to states that vote Republican in elections - are often ‘red’ in more ways than one.
 

In Nebraska, 121 publicly-owned utilities, 10 cooperatives, and 30 public power districts provide electricity to a population of around 1.8 million people. Public and cooperative ownership keeps costs low for the state’s consumers. Nebraskans pay one of the lowest rates for electricity in the nation and revenues are reinvested in infrastructure to ensure reliable and cheap service for years to come.  

 

“There are no stockholders, and thus no profit motive,” the Nebraska Power Association proudly proclaims. “Our electric prices do not include a profit. That means Nebraska’s utilities can focus exclusively on keeping electric rates low and customer service high. Our customers, not big investors in New York and Chicago, own Nebraska’s utilities.” 

 

Payments (in lieu of taxes) from the state’s publicly-owned utilities exceed $30 million a year and support a variety of social services throughout the state - including the public education system.
 

Nebraska has a long history of publicly-owned power systems dating back to the beginnings of electrification in the late 1800s. Initially, these co-existed with small private utilities. However, in the post-World War One era, large corporate electric holding companies backed by Wall Street banks entered the market and began taking over smaller private and municipal systems. 

 

Using their financial and political power, these corporations dramatically consolidated the power industry in Nebraska and attempted to stop new cooperatives and publicly-owned utilities from forming. During this time more than one-third of the state’s municipal utilities were sold to private corporations.
 

Tired of abusive corporate practices, in 1930 residents and advocates of publicly-owned utilities took a revenue bond financing proposal straight to the voters, bypassing the corporate influenced legislature which had previously failed to pass similar legislation. It was approved overwhelmingly - signaling both popular support for publicly-owned utilities in the state and also the beginnings of their resurgence. 

 

Led by powerful Nebraska Senator George W. Norris - the driving force behind the publicly-owned Tennessee Valley Authority - a series of state and federal laws were passed including: the state’s Enabling Act (1933) which allowed 15% of eligible voters in an area to petition for a decision on a publicly-owned utility; the Public Utility Holding Company Act (1935) which forced the breakup and restructuring of corporate electricity monopolies; and the Rural Electrification Act (1936) which provided financing for rural electricity projects. By 1949, Nebraska had solidified its status as the first and only all-public power state.
 

Local control and the possibility for democratic participation are defining features of Nebraska’s publicly-owned electricity system. At the ground level, public utilities and cooperatives are run by publicly-elected power district boards, cooperative boards, or elected city councils (often through appointed boards). 

 

These bodies establish budgets, establish service standards and policies, and set prices. Regularly scheduled meetings of power boards and councils are open to public involvement and comment. Should they so wish, every Nebraskan has the opportunity to become involved in the decision-making of their local electricity provider. 

 

One such example relates to the increasing use and proliferation of renewable energy facilities. While the state remains heavily reliant on coal and nuclear sources to provide low-cost energy to consumers, interest in renewable energy - primarily wind - has taken off in recent years. 

 

In 2003, electricity consumers, many of whom drove more than 100 miles for the event, participated in an eight-hour deliberative polling survey for the Nebraska Public Power District (NPDD) - a public corporation owned by the state of Nebraska that supplies energy to 600,000 people via local publicly-owned utilities and cooperatives. 

 

The topic at hand was the potential addition of more than 200 MW of wind energy by 2010. 96% of the participants supported the wind project, with 50% agreeing it was the right size and 36% wanting it expanded (compared to just 3% who wanted it reduced).

In addition to its other wind power facilities, in 2005 NPDD began operating the Ainsworth Wind Energy Facility, the nation’s second largest publicly-owned wind farm consisting of 36 turbines generating up to 59.5 MW of energy. 

 

In 2011, the state’s energy plan acknowledged both that power generation from wind had doubled every two years since 2006 and that developing just 1% of the potential energy from wind in Nebraska would satisfy the state’s entire peak demand.
 

Moreover, public ownership of electricity generation and distribution in Nebraska is complemented by another seemingly socialist idea - planning. The Nebraska Power Review Board is a state agency that oversees the publicly-owned electricity system. 

 

In addition to its regulatory functions - such as monitoring rate increases and arbitrating conflicts - the five person Review Board (appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the legislature with party, occupational, and term limit restrictions) “oversees the preparation and filing of a coordinated long-range power supply plan,” as well as the location and construction of new electricity generation facilities.
 

As demonstrated by Nebraska’s nearly 100 years of experience with a completely public and community-owned electricity system, American experimentation offers an interesting alternative to how public ownership has often been implemented in other parts of the world. 

 

Describing the post-World War Two British public-ownership program, University of Glasgow professor Andrew Cumbers writes:

“The nationalization of the electricity, gas and other utilities resulted in the centralization of many activities that had formerly been locally or municipally owned and subject to a reasonable degree of local democratic control … Not only did this eviscerate important traditions of municipal socialism and more democratic forms of public ownership, but it also led to an increasing number of costly and unaccountable decisions (notably the decision to invest in nuclear power) by nationalized entities.”

Such experiences often reinforce the concern that public ownership of larger-scale systems can lead to inefficiency, unaccountability, and bureaucracy. But Nebraska demonstrates that this does not necessarily have to be the case. 

 

The principles of subsidiarity and local control can, in fact, be preserved through a networked mix of publicly-owned institutions at various scales without sacrificing efficiency or service quality. 

 

Of course, public ownership alone is not a fix-all solution. It does, however, provide an opportunity for a community, a city, or even a whole region or nation to become actively involved in economic decision making on important matters affecting their lives, their environment, and their future.

 

This article was first published in Our Kingdom. Republished with thanks.

New Start-Up Guide for Budding Social Entrepreneurs

by Social Enterprise UK: http://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/news/new-start-guide-for-budding-social-entrepreneurs

A new guide has been published for those interested in starting a social enterprise, like Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant chain, the Big Issue and Cornwall’s Eden Project.

The UK is home to 68,000 social enterprises - businesses that, akin to charities, exist to make a positive difference.

But unlike their cousins in the charitable sector, social enterprises earn their income by selling goods and services, competing in the open market with private sector businesses. 

Download 'Start your social enterprise'

The latest figures* on Britain’s social enterprise sector show that it’s flourishing and experiencing an explosion: 1 in 7 of all social enterprises is a start-up, more than three times the proportion of start-ups in the mainstream SME business sector.  London is home to an even greater number, where 1 in 5 social enterprises is a start-up.

According to Social Enterprise UK, an upsurge in social enterprise start-ups is often seen when economic circumstances are difficult.

Social Enterprise UK’s Chief Executive, Peter Holbrook, a former social entrepreneur, said:

“Social entrepreneurs see a problem and want to fix it.  And at the moment, with youth unemployment, fuel poverty, reduced services in social care and other problems coming to the fore because of the economic crisis, we’re seeing an upsurge in people wanting to remedy these issues in their communities. Social entrepreneurs are people who are not willing to watch their communities and the people living in them suffer. They use business acumen to tackle the issues head-on. “Setting up and running a social enterprise is not for the faint hearted, not only do you have to satisfy your customers, you’ve got to make the business sustainable and achieve your social or environmental mission, but the rewards are incredible."

The recent launch of Big Society Capital, the world’s first social investment bank, is expected to help finance and grow the UK’s social enterprise sector.  The Government-backed bank has an initial £600million, and will lend to social enterprises.

‘Start your social enterprise’ takes you through the essentials to help you plan your social venture, and covers everything from writing your business plan, finding investment and funding, deciding on the most suitable legal structure and governance.

Social enterprise facts and figures

• Over a third (39%) of all social enterprises are based and working in the most deprived communities in the UK, compared to 13% of all SMEs, creating jobs and making a positive difference where needed most.
• Social enterprises are outstripping mainstream businesses for confidence and twice as likely to have reported growth in the last year - 58% of social enterprises grew their business last year compared to 28% of SMEs.
• Social enterprises are more likely to be led by women and young people - 86% of leadership teams boast at least one female director - in comparison, just 13% of the Institute of Directors’ membership is female.

Trailblazing social enterprises

Beyond Food Foundation

Simon Boyle, a chef, is founder of the Beyond Food Foundation, which runs programmes to support people living in hostels and at risk of homelessness. Simon returned from Sri Lanka in 2004 where he had been working to create a relief camp after the Tsunami. He wanted to share his passion for food with people who he thought would benefit from his energy and enthusiasm for cooking.

One of the programmes run by the Beyond Food Foundation supports people through a six-month apprenticeship in the recently opened Brigade Bar & Bistro in London, which has already received a visit from the Prime Minister. The apprentices receive part-time training at the nearby Southwark College and volunteer mentors help with confidence building, money management and CV writing.
www.beyondfoodfoundation.org.uk

Who Made Your Pants?

Founder Becky John got Who made your pants? off the ground in 2009, after a life changing experience led her into counselling and a personal epiphany to do more in the world in which she lived.  And so knowing that there was a huge refugee population in Southampton, and suspecting that many of the women within it were isolated and not feeling able to go and have fun, Becky started wondering if these women might like a job, making lovely pants.

In a factory in Southampton women who have had a hard time come together to work.  Who made your pants? provides jobs, training, support and advice.
http://whomadeyourpants.co.uk/

Bikeworks

Founder Jim Blakemore, was running his own bike hire company in Cambridge before he started Bikeworks in East London in 2007: “I put £2,000 of my own money in and had a small grant to buy bikes from the London Cycling Campaign. Bikeworks was set up to train children, adults and disabled people how to ride bikes. I didn’t have premises and had twenty bikes stored in my spare room”.

He was soon joined by business partner Dave Miller, a former development manager for a charity.  Together they are growing Bikeworks, which supports disadvantaged people into training and employment. They deliver public sector contracts and have multiple retail outlets across London where they sell and repair bikes.
www.bikeworks.org.uk

‘Start your social enterprise’ is supported by RBS.

* Figures from Fightback Britain: State of Social Enterprise Survey (August 2011).