Mutual-Aid & Self-Help Groups

Communities across the world have organized member-owned institutions, both formal and informal, to survive against corporatized financial systems. The most predominant cooperative systems across the world are the Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs).

I interviewed Bianca Elzenbaumer for my latest podcast of Frontiers of Commoning (Episode #75) to learn more about the group’s very different vision of development.

In this study, we survey 1,214 members of Member-Owned Institutions (MOIs) in the state of Kerala, India. Kerala’s MOIs underline the value of citizen engagement and action to improve social provisioning and equity, making it a model for an inclusive economics of global importance.

This talk shares stories of the emergence of solidarity economy movements in Massachusetts. Loh traces how these movements, many of which he has been involved with, have been fighting for and building over the past fifteen years around projects such as worker-owned cooperatives, community land trusts, community investment funds, mutual aid, and more.

This month’s guest is Rob Callender, co-founder of Kin.coop, a platform designed to help people start and manage cooperative savings clubs. What would it look like to organise money collectively? 

For two activists, operating a physical space is crucial for building community and culture.

As market economies become more expensive and predatory, Stephanie Rearick is showing that it’s entirely possible to meet people’s needs effectively through care and cooperation, through a kind of alternative social economy.

Mari Nishitani discusses her cooperative research trip to two villages in rural Nepal to visit women's cooperatives, on NGO led and one a grassroots effort led by Dalit women. 

What happens when our communities are torn apart by toxic inequality, political fragmentation and declining social trust? The solution may lie in something that humans have been doing throughout our existence: taking care of each other, often without realizing it. Today that’s what some of us call the “solidarity economy.” 

This study explores the role of solidarity finance in promoting local development and the empowerment of marginalized communities through financial inclusion and access to community credits. It focuses on how solidarity-based financial mechanisms provide accessible credit with fewer barriers, fostering productive activities and economic resilience.