TheCAREconomy

The CAREconomy Collective Meet-up

CAUX, Switzerland

Thank you for coming and Keep engaging your community!

Context

A child born today in Western Europe or North America inherits inconceivable wealth: water flows from in-home taps; electricity is available at the touch of a switch. The world is crisscrossed by roads, railways, waterways, electric lines, telephone, satellite and cellular networks, all of which make food, sanitation, goods, and global communication effortlessly available.

Unfortunately, this child also inherits an economic system that channels an increasing percentage of our world’s resources to an ever-decreasing percentage of our world’s population. This economic system is designed to stimulate continuous growth, fueled by extraction, production, waste, and the constant pressure of competition. Too often, these practices favor exploitation, domination, and even violence over creativity, collaboration, and compassion.

On the other hand, we have also acquired a great deal of knowledge. We can see that we are rapidly destroying our atmosphere and the amazing biosphere we have all inherited. People from a wide range of disciplines are developing new concepts, tools, and practices designed to promote equitable and sustainable distribution of natural resources and wealth.

Terms related to these new developments include:
Green Economy
Degrowth/ Zero Growth
Universal Basic Income (UBI)
Local Currencies
Digital Currencies
Gross National Happiness (GNH)
Circular Economy
Gift Economy
Sharing Economy
Integral Economy
Transition Movement (Transition Towns)
Cooperative Movement
B Corporations (USA Social Enterprises)
Holocracy/Sociocracy
Mindfulness/Values-Based Enterprises
Conscious Capitalism (USA)

Purpose

From a growth/debt-based/entropic economic system managed by large, centralized institutions (governments and banks), to a network of decentralized, transparent, and mutually-sustaining economies;
From wealth obtained through extraction, production, consumption and waste to economies based on self-rejuvenating “cradle to cradle” design;
From default market pricing that ignores or “externalizes” unmeasured costs (underpaid labor, long-term resource depletion, voluntary creativity and time, etc.), to markets that fully respect and account for all types of labor and natural resources, and ;

From competition and growth for maximum profit to creativity and collaboration that manifests universal values of dignity, fairness, and compassion for all;
From access to capital for the few to access to essential capital for all;
From closed systems of knowledge to transparent systems of shared knowledge and wisdom.

“TheCAREconomy and Money” Collective Meet-Up

The “TheCAREconomy and Money” collective meet-up is a gathering organized to happen during the annual Caux Forum, whose mission is to inspire, equip and connect people, groups and organizations to build a just, sustainable and peaceful world. Accordingly, the meet-up is focused on accomplishing two key objectives:

Build a knowledge commons based on universal values of equity and dignity derived from local initiatives around the world that are designed to create new economic patterns that manifest equity.

Turn knowledge into action by advancing applications that build local economies rooted in creativity, caring, equity and respect for humanity and natural resources, with an awareness of the limits of growth.

The collective meet-up consists mainly of four types of participants.

Community Clusters

Groups of up to six people working together on social, economic, environmental, and/or educational initiatives that address systemic problems facing society.

Local Currency Group Copenhagen. We are looking for more social solutions and getting resources into play that currently are not adressed.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Like many cities NYC grapples with the challenge to develop housing that can accommodate a diverse population that includes millions of immigrants and low income families. The NYC cluster explores how complementary currency and other tools might be employed to create a broader range of housing options as well as a higher quality of life for all New Yorkers.

Public Housing NYC, USA

The City of Ghent, together with the partners, is doing research on how to introduce a local currency in a feasible way in other neighbourhoods or maybe set up an city-currency to obtain stronger co-creation/collaboration between the city government, the citizens, the entrepreneurs,… and other stakeholders.

City of Gent, Belgium

The Zeitpolster is an Austrian currency created in 2017 so that people could earn credits helping seniors in their community. The basic unit of account is an hour of service to an elderly person. The project is launched nationwide in 2018.

“Time Cushion” Austria

The Léman is the complementary currency of the transboundary Lake Geneva basin. More info coming soon.

“Léman” Geneva Lake Region

Felsentor Foundation is a Zen Center dedicated to promote mindfulness and compassion with a special focus on animal protection and ethical nutrition. We plan to invent a complementary currency in order to enable a better access to our services (mainly meditation retreats but also some products like herbal preparations) for those who cannot afford them otherwise, but also to encourage people to actively support us in running our facilities.

Felsentor, Switzerland

Our cluster launched an inquiry into the care economy whilst creating and facilitating care economy services for the local community of Nice, France with actionable social impact. This international team will explore and design a “CARENCY – money that works for all” in their global and local community.

Nice, France

Our challenge is how to most effectively connect fair economy participants locally in their regions and translocally around the world in ways that liberate them from dependencies on the old system and helps retain the value flow in the fair economy they are building.

Fair Coop Europe

The initiative is part of the Transition Towns concept, of which Totnes is a pioneer. According to the Transition Town Totnes website this means that it is “a community in a process of imagining and creating a future that addresses the twin challenges of diminishing oil and gas supplies and climate change, and creates the kind of community that we would all want to be part of”

Totnes Pound, England

Key Pollinators

Individual experts (in communities, currencies, universal basic income, health, farming, permaculture, etc.) who share knowledge, strengthen interconnections, and enrich discussions being held in each cluster.

Marjukka Turunen has been working in The Social Insurance Institution (Kela) in Finland for 17 years. She has been working with all the 40 basic social security benefits and has been leading the legislation making and the implementation of the Finnish Basic Income Experiment. Turunen is working as a Director of Change Management in Kela.

Marjukka Turunen

Enno Schmidt is co-founder of the initiative basic income that led to a national referendum in Switzerland in 2016. He is author and maker of the film “Basic Income – a Cultural Impuls”, translated in 20 languages, and co-founder of UBI Asia Pacific and initiates that encourages basic income movements worldwide.

Enno Schmidt

Kate Raworth is a renegade economist focused on exploring the economic mindset needed to address the 21st century’s social and ecological challenges, and is the creator of the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries.

Kate Raworth

Gwendolyn has over 30 years of experience working with municipal, regional, and state government in the United States and internationally. The author of six books on community planning, resilience and sustainable economics, she founded a non-profit organization called Global Community Initiatives to take action on these issues in 2002, then founded Vermonters for a New Economy in 2012.

Gwendolyn Hallsmith

Mel Wymore is a system engineer and community activist for 30 years. Mel is designing a cryptocurrency that would balance appreciation and compassion against competition and greed.

Mel Wymore

John is a South African social change and tech entrepreneur who is currently exploring the intersection between complementary currencies, the commons and distributed infrastructure. He is the co-founder of FLOW, an initiative that couples complementary currencies with an innovative youth development programme.

John Ziniades

Anna is a South African social change practitioner, architect, urbanist and facilitator with more than 20 years’ experience in regenerative and participatory design and implementation. She is the co-founder of FLOW, an initiative that couples complementary currencies with an innovative youth development programme.

Anna Cowen

Calvin Myrthu

Andree Schinke and Dr. Heidi Winkler are CEOs of the permaculture park (Permakulturpark am Lebensgarten Steyerberg), founded by Declan Kennedy and associated to the community Lebensgarten Steyerberg in Germany. Their project and work is based on the ethics of permaculture: earth care & people care & fair share.

Andrée Schinke & Heidi Winkler

Gustav is specialized in applying distributed ledger technology in the design of currencies, governance systems & organizational processes.

Gustav Friis

Currency expert Bernard Lietaer advocates an upgrade of our money systems as a systemic solution to our global economic, financial, and sustainability crisis.

Bernard Lietaer

Facilitators

Our facilitators are well-versed in connecting people and engaging participants in meaningful reflection and creative discussion.

I passionately believe in the transformational power of our body’s intelligence. We each have the potential to develop a new way of relating to our body’s signals that will revolutionize our personal and group cultures.

Madelanne Rust-D’Eye

Ben co-founded Transition Network in 2006 with Rob Hopkins and has played many roles: International Development Coordinator, Events Coordinator, Comms Coordinator, toilet repairer and lately re-upholsterer for our threadbare office chairs.

Ben Brangwyn

Key Listeners

Individuals (from public/private institutions, corporations, NGO’s, or community groups) with interest and/or expertise in TheCAREconomy.

Alida has worked in East Africa as a rural development professional since 1986. She co-founded the URDT Girls School and serves on governance bodies of social enterprises like URDT and African Rural University which students facilitate community driven development based on vision and systems analysis to generate sustainable people serving economies in Uganda.

Alida Bakema

Co-Founder of Faith in Leadership based in London, United Kingdom. “Faith in Leadership”, is a program that has been successfully running in the UK for several years, an initiative supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other leading faith-based organisations in the UK.

Krish Raval

Florence is C.E.O. of a non profit fondation “The University for the Future”, based in the heart of the “Biovallée” (Organic Valley) in France. This organisation, inspired by the founding texts such as the Bill of rights, aims at creating innovative solutions for a friendly and sustainable world.

Florence Ferret

Drissa Kanambaye is a PhD candidate in Communication at l’University Catholique de Louvain (Belgique). He is the President of the Conseil Superieur of the Malien Diaspora in Belgium, founder of the ngo I Kanda (Belgique/Mali), and the spokesperson for the movement, “Transformons le Mali.”

Drissa Kanambaye

Sandor Hatvany is a musician and a student in Sociology at the University of Brighton. He was raised in France.

Sandor Hatvany

Denny Braggins

PhD Student at UCL, President of the Oceans Network of the EU’s ERASMUS Programme and Board Member of the Erasmus Student Alumni Association (ESAA). I have two Masters degrees in Arid Land Studies and have worked in the UK, USA, Australia, Libya, Lebanon and Somaliland.

Scott Darby

In a nutshell about me: software engineer, worked in automation, finance software and telecommunication software.
I now want to focus my time/energy to things aligned with my ‘heart’.

Jean Yves Leseigneur

In a nutshell about me: Writer, feminist and political activist.

Parwana Haydar

Registration for key listeners is closed.

Given limited space, TheCAREconomy selects participants based on several criteria. Regardless of role, all participants should have:

Commitment to participate fully in the entire meet-up, a sense of how one might contribute and what one might take away from the meet-up
A sense of being integral to a whole greater than the individual self – “from me to we”
A commitment to action based on universal values of dignity, equity, compassion, responsibility, freedom, empathy, oneness, care and self-awareness for all
A proven ability to affect measureable results related to health, education, public safety, politics, environment, economics, media, and government
Excellent listening and speaking skills, and communication based on self-awareness
Proficiency in English

The TCE Team

Béla

Lauren

Stefanie

Yara

Patrick

Tanja

Contact

TCE c/o Polymoney, Rue du Valentin 34, Lausanne, Switzerland, +41 21 323 9090