SolidarityNYC

Location: New York, NY

Website:www.solidaritynyc
www.urban-decay.livejournal.com

SolidarityNYC connects, supports, and promotes New York City’s solidarity economy.

The solidarity economy meets human needs through economic activities–like the production and exchange of goods and services–that reinforce values of justice, ecological sustainability, cooperation, and democracy. From credit unions to worker cooperatives, Community Supported Agriculture to time banks, community land trusts to participatory budgeting, it’s an economy actually worth occupying.

Our vision is a vibrant and growing movement that provides greater economic security, improved physical and emotional health, and increased democracy for our communities and ecosystems.

We hope to:

- Make the strong solidarity economy practices that already exist in New York City more visible. (Check out our map and our films.)

- Bring the various sectors of the solidarity economy into conversation with each other for collaboration and mutual benefit.

- We want to build political power.

- Grow the solidarity economy by driving more traffic into existing initiatives and inspire and support the development of new ones.

- We’ve mapped what’s available and we’re ready to connect people and organizations who can help New Yorkers start their own economic alternatives.

- Create cultures of cooperation and direct democracy to replace those of competition and hierarchy which characterize corporate capitalism. It isn’t enough to just have a “green” business or “social” enterprise–we have to radically change the way we relate to each other and the purpose of economic activity.

- Challenge the social justice movement to take up grassroots economic community development. When our communities organize to meet their own needs–which all have some economic element–we create new bonds of interdependence (some might call it solidarity!) and open additional opportunities for transformation.