Country: Argentina
Organization: Educational Cooperative Olga Cossettini
3) Strategy Summary:
This project aims to establish a new method for financing
social services. It is like a power plant supplied by two
sources of energy; the Mission that motivates us to work
together and our personal abilities. It is a bank of
communitarian Resources, nonmonetary, that endorses an own
currency that is used to mobilize cooperative resources.
When the currency between the partners circulates, a
communitarian market is generated, that increases its
spending power and facilitates the product interchange and
services. It is not a Bank of Specific Resources (Food
Bank - Blood Bank) is not a Bank of Time in which hours of
services interchange (England - Italy - Spain) is not a
Bank of Professional Hours (Brazil - HIV) is not a Club of
Exchange
4) How the Strategy Works:
The implementation of an economic scheme that relies on a
new kind of local social currency administrated trough
civil organizations. Organization and working sistem wich
allows economics outcosts to participate in a new social
agreement wich converts their knowlwdge and capacities
into
economic values making the poors wealth visible.The Bank
generates capital in the short term and invests mainly in
educative projects of long term, initial education,
complementary education, alphabetization in contexts of
extreme poverty.
To obtain a long-term change we must change first our
stingy and egoistical mentality in a cooperative
mentality.
It is for that reason that we take care of educative and
socioeconomics causes simultaneously.
Step by step:
- To describe clearly common aims (for example to
maintain
50 % of the expenses of a school)
- To make an annual budget of all the necessary
activities to make the common objective. Specially
detailing the human resources, specific working hours,
capacities.
- To determine the value of the hour of work in
relation
to the Organization. In our school we paid 3 $ the hour
for
non educative tasks.
- To make a listing of the labour capacities of all the
members of the group.
- To decide the value the monthly payment that must pay
each partner to maintain annual budget (in our school we
paid $ 35 monthly)
- To consult to each one of the people who are going to
work for the organization, on their necessities and
preferences (feeding - services - education - health)
- To collect work commitments: All the partners sign
checks offering
products or services. The values cannot exceed the price
established in the market for similar products. In our
school we collected 6 months to principle of year and
other
6 to half of year.
- To print institutional checks and to design the
currency
or the personal notebook.
- To establish the form to assign the payments and to
make the interchanges. In our school, in the beginning, we
used a personal notebook. At the moment we used a ticket
whose unit of value is equivalent to the one of the
current
currency.
- To organize a management of donations to companies -
commerce - particular.
- According to the collection a modality of payments
settles down. If the products of first necessity do not
reach after all it establishes a criterion of priorities
(2
kg of honey by person can be retired – 2 kg of
flour - etc) Actually we told on an administrative
software that it
allows to
know us:
a. The total value of products and services that endorse
the social currency
b. Amount of currency circulating between the partners.
c. Amount of currency in Administrative Box d.
d. Quantity of donated merchandise and the Total value.
Example To transfer:
A group of 20 families needs to organize itself to
educate their
children in a kindergarten and to give them to eat at
noon.
They have obtained an appropriate place, the
teeachers,and
cooks. The municipality provides foods to them but it does
not have money to pay the cooks and the teachers. The
approximated cost of the human resources is of $ 750
monthly ones.
1) the families commit themselves to offer products and
services by a value of $37 monthly ones. 2) the cook, the
administrator and the teachers accept to receive their
work
with products and services offered by the families and the
donations that are obtained to endorse the currency. They
make a personal listing of its necessities and
preferences.
3) the families sign checks offering their services
to an equal or inferior value to those of the market.
Example: Flia
Perez signs for two days of work of gardening/Fl a Gomez
signs for
two cakes and pizzas./Fl a Martinez signs for 6 washings
of
clothes. 4)
the administration collects $ 740 monthly, in commitments
of work
signed by families (checks) and $ 300 in merchandises
donated by
companies and commerce. 5) bonds are printed, with values
similar to
those of the currency that circulates officially. Services
of up to $1040 monthly can be paid (the obtained
endorsement) 6) the cook, the administrator and the
teachers receive their wage with the communitarian
currency
and with that money they buy products and services offered
by the partners and the donated merchandise. Also they can
use it to interchange with some family who offers a
service
to him (they are personal agreements in where the
administration does not take part) 7) As they increase its
communitarian capital, increasing the number of partners,
increasing its monthly
contributions, or managing merchandises, can improve or
diversify the services.The Project can be transferred
anywhere in the country and abroad. The condition is the
existence of a Basic Social Capital: people committed with
Common Causes. The Commitment is not transferable, we can
show examples, teach methods and systems.
5) Key Strategy Elements:
i. Mobilizing Citizen Support:
The Bank coorditates different types of mambershis and has
developed an economic system bases on cooperation.
Different types of relationships are established:
(engagement/concern circles)
Beneficiaries: they are those who receive food or
education
free. (children, elders)
Reciprocity: the poor put in value his skills and pay the
services. This commitment is formalized by signing a work
certificate, which operates like a beare s check but to be
paid in goods or service. The poor are going to be able to
pay his municipal taxes with the checks of Community Hours
Bank.
Cooperation: The poor men are associated and formed
organizations with social aims.
Donors: the poor donate commitments of work to support the
ii. Generating Financial and Nonfinancial Resources:
The cooperative is composed by 46 families, principally
for
new poor and unoccupied. We do not have any contribution
of
the government to give educational services. In these
conditions we manage to generate more resources than a
public school composed by 300 families. In the year 2004
the commission of resources of the public school generated
$ 800, whereas the cooperative generated $15.000 (with the
bank)
The Bank has been successfully implemented by the
Cooperative to both develop educational activities and
support the component families
It is said that time is money. Our money is time. The gold
backing of our time is the time we devote to our common
causes. The social currency is supported by the work
commitment and
merchandises.
iii. Establishing Relationships with Strategic Partnerships:
With the Companies we made an agreement so that they
donate
merchandise to us in good state but that they cannot enter
the formal market (promotions - problems of packaging -
near expiry- outside series etc.) With the municipality we
are making an agreement: the neighbors will can pay its
taxes with our social currency. In our locality the
municipality receives single 20 % of the taxes.
With other SCO:We formed a Network of Social Organizations
and have an Agency of the News with weekly reports.
iv. Engaging and Managing Volunteers:
With our system we can optimize any work with volunteers.
The two qualities that are in game when it works
with volunteers are: Availability and Capacity. With the
Bank of Hours each voluntary company/signature checks
offering the works that know to do well, and the
administrator can contract the workers who need according
to the work that the organization needs.
6) Increasing Self-sufficiency and Social Impact:
The Community Hours Bank was created in 1998, to maintain
an Educational Cooperative of 25 families, with 40
tudents.
In that year the monthly collection was of $ 600.
In year 2004 we have collected $3000 monthly ; educative
services for 60 students,(initial and primary
education);Complementary education for 200 (
children in educative and social risk);Labor formation for
35 vacated young people. University education for 60
students, teeachers and professional. Agency of the News
for 25 SCOs. This initiative has a leading role, and is
part of a participative Development Plan since year 2000.
In this Plan, all social actors are involved as well as
the
Town Hall. The crisis put our solidarity to the test so
we proposed an organization a and working system which
allows economic outcasts to participate in a new social
agreement in which their knowledge and capacities are
convertible into economic value.
8) Organization Mission and Vision:
Our Mission is to contribute to the development of a new
socio-economic model which positively includes vulnerable
groups in small localities.
Looking Forward to the Next Three Years:
Capilla del Monte is going to have a social currency
endorsed genuinely by particular commitments of work,
administered by the SCOs, and with which taxes will be
able to be paid.This currency has no value out of the
locality and activates the economy of the hearths,
professionals and SCOs. At organizacional level the
project will have continuity thanks to the Social Capital,
the Network, to the intersectorial participation and to
the commitment of the people with the project.
Contact Information:
Marcelo Caldano
Social Entrepreneur
Educational Cooperative Olga Cossettini
Rio Gualeguay 1, Capilla del Monte, 5184, Cordoba,
Argentina
Tel: 54-3548-482018
Fax: 54-3548-481007
Email: marcelocaldano@yahoo.com.ar
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