Responding Together meeting with citizens and local public officials

Date: May 16-18, 2013

To participate, please contact Malcolm Cox - malcolm.cox à coe.int

Social Workers Network Responding Together actions proposals

A self-managed social center built in an occupied abandoned factory that has lead to several initiatives : new forms of welfare for Italian and migrant population, innovative types of co-production of renewable energy, collective solutions to produce income for young temporary workers, and new practices of democratic management of resources on the base of a common pool of knowledge and competences.

An Association of women coming from many different countries and pooling their resources in the creation of a collective and self-managed educational institution designed to accommodate children aged from a few months to 12 years in the context of structural inadequacy of public services.

In September 2010, some workers of the corporation Eutelia Information Technology in Rome, after having been made ​​redundant as a result of the crisis that hit the company, decided to create an urban garden community cultivating 3000 square meters of land owned by the Province of Rome, for consuming and selling agricultural products, thus continuing to work together and maintaining the visibility of their dispute for the workplace.

In the last year in the city of Rome, different experiences of urban gardens have arisen as a form of opposition to unemployment and increasing poverty but also to overbuilding, cementation, and privatization of public territory. Here below are two of the main initiatives.

Some associations and social centers of the district of Garbatella in Rome, with the participation of many citizens, decided to occupy an abandoned area in order to create a common garden.

Repairing all together and learning from others in a cocoon atmosphere. Once a month in Brussels, people can give a new life to broken items and learn how to repair them with enthusiastic skilled volunteers. Tools and Equipment are available for reparation as well as cakes and coffee.

Communities of Wallonia responding together: action proposals

Cabo Verde: Casa do Meio (Porto Novo – Santo Antão) Houve um beneficiário que não conseguia instalar gota a gota porque o terreno não estava desbravado. Então a Comunidade ajudou-o a fazer esse trabalho, o que permitiu a instalação de tal equipamento.

How to be environmentally responsible and to save money in your consumer habits. Since 2008 ADEVICO, a French NGO, is providing an answer to this question by conducting workshops in which participants learn to make their own cheap and environmentally-friendly products.