Support the Solidarity Economy from Below

We need your help to raise money to maintain our work through 2023, to strengthen and build the solidarity economy as an alternative to capitalism, and play a role in building an ecologically sustainable, resilient and socially just economic system from below.

Please donate what you can and share the link with your friends, family and co-workers.

Who are we?

We’re the Solidarity Economy Association, a small co-operative with big ambitions, based in England, Wales and Scotland. We want to build up the ‘solidarity economy’ across these isles, and deepen relationships with and between movements developing real alternatives to the capitalist system in other parts of the world. 

We produce learning, build capacity, weave relationships and initiate projects we see as missing in the UK context – local, regional and national organising with an internationalist perspective. Our work ranges from developing workshops, building and maintaining digital tools and education websites for the solidarity economy movement, to working with local and national solidarity economy groups, to practical international solidarity and fundraising.

Since 2020, we've raised over £150,000 to support vital water projects in North and East Syria through our Water for Rojava campaign. In 2021, we created a UK-wide organisers' network (SEON) focused on supporting and connecting horizontally-run grassroots organisations working at the frontlines of migrant justice, working class struggles, women's autonomy, land and food sovereignty and other arenas of transformative justice work. We have also continued to build platforms dedicated to sharing and spreading resources around mutual aid and solidarity economy. These include the construction of a (soon to be launched) Mutual Aid website and our most recent series of webinars (with live interpretation in 6 languages), Conversations with Gamechangers, aimed at learning from organisations building autonomy across almost every continent and transcending the lack of internationalist knowledge-exchange and experience-sharing, through translation.

What do we need?

In order for us to continue doing this work, and to reach more organisations and community groups, we need your help!

We currently have a shortfall for the first part of 2023 and we need your help to continue developing our current interwoven strands of work, which together form a strategy to strengthen and build the grassroots solidarity economy from below, to weave relationships between disparate groups and movements and build an ecologically sustainable, resilient and socially just economic system:

• Building a coordinated network of grassroots solidarity initiatives led by people at the forefront of systemic oppression and economic disadvantage.
• Internationalist solidarity with movements creating systems change in other parts of the world, in particular the women-led, ecological, democratic transformations in North and East Syria (Rojava), to learn from and translate these experiences to our own context.
• Research and education toward developing current movements, building alliances and capacity for sharing vision and strategy between organisations. To know our history is to know who we are, and to understand the system we are operating in, and education is a core strand of our work.
• Developing tools and resources to enable the work above.

How will we use the money?

• We need a minimum of £18,000 to cover a shortfall in our funding for the first half of 2023.
• This will be used towards the salaries of our three dedicated, part-time staff (based in England, Wales and Scotland), so we can keep running and delivering a range of projects which are building the solidarity economy.

What do we do?

We are the organisation behind Co-operation in Mesopotamia, a project building awareness and solidarity with co-ops in North and East Syria (Rojava) since 2016. We have run workshops across the UK, organised the first known 'co-op bloc' on a demonstration in support of Rojava, and co-ordinated and supported a range of solidarity initiatives, as well as continually updating our website, www.mesopotamia.coop with news about civilian life and livelihoods in North and East Syria.

We initiated and co-ordinate the Water for Rojava campaign, which since 2020 has successfully raised and distributed over £150,000 for vital water infrastructure in North and East Syria, where 5 million people are facing water scarcity.

In 2021 we set up the Solidarity Economy Organisers Network (SE-ON) to build capacity in and coordination between grassroots groups that are both led by, and work to support, people most marginalised by the neoliberal capitalist system. The network was set up with Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment (MORE), the Class Work Project and Decolonising Economics, and is now preparing to launch a new phase, bringing in three more grassroots organisations.

We're hosting a series of online Conversations with Gamechangers, featuring inspiring and revolutionary organisations working in the Solidarity Economy across six continents, with multilingual translation and interpretation to internationalise and share the knowledge and experience, while building solidarity.

We’ve been developing political education workshops for co-operatives to better understand the history and potentials of co-ops for liberatory change, with examples of vibrant movements around the world which have used co-ops as part of a broader movement, rather than an end in themselves.

We also partner up with other organisations to build collaboration and expand our reach. For example, we co-organised a sold out weekend workshop on Class and Co-ops in Brighton in collaboration with Class Work Project, to challenge co-operatives and grassroots social movements to understand how the class system is reproduced within them.

• We’ve been instrumental in building advanced digital directory and mapping systems, working with a diverse range of organisations from regional groups like Transition Liverpool to international federations like the International Co-operative Alliance.
• We co-founded the Digital Commons Co-operative in partnership with Shared Assets to provide a range of affordable data sharing and mapping tools and services to co-op, solidarity economy and land commons movements, as well pushing for better data standards and sharing protocols in the broad ‘commons’ economy.
• We’re regularly approached for signposting and support by a number of solidarity economy groups, on things like how to access funding, run a successful crowdfunding campaign, or help thinking through ideas around internal democracy.
• We co-founded the Owned By Oxford project which used a Community Wealth Building approach to support locally led, community owned businesses that meet local needs and tackle Oxford’s inequalities.

Rewards!

We have a selection of rewards to show our gratitude for donations to the Crowdfunder.

Please note these rewards can only be delivered to the UK, due to shipping costs. 

Posters printed by Calverts workers coop.

T-shirt printed on sustainable materials.

Stickers

Tote bags from Unicorn Workers coop.

Hand embroidered Zapatista blouse from Chiapas

A pair of tickets to see Maxine Peake’s show Betty! A sort of Musical - Royal Exchange Theatre

Signed print of Janet Biehl's artwork 

Bracelet from Lavîn women’s co-op in Rojava

Scarf from Lavîn women’s co-op in Rojava

Zapatista board game.

Dog section press books

Stir to Action magazine and New Internationalist magazine bundle. 

And many more! 

Please note again that we can only ship to the UK, although we of course welcome donations from other country's.