Social InnovationResearch for ‘Welcome to St. Gilles’ project

3 relevant cases

Social InnovationThe term social innovation refers to changes in the way individuals or communities act to solve a

problem or to generate new opportunities. These innovations are driven more by changes in behaviour than by changes in technology or the market and they typically emerge from bottom-up rather than top-

down processes.MANZINI, Ezio; JÉGOU, François.

Social InnovationFor ME social innovation is a way to improve the quality of life of a specific community by re-organizing already existing products and services (this means, not necessarily doing new ‘stuff ’), so that they

integrate better to the community as a system. These ideas should be implemented locally, and should not be replicated, but taken as inspiration on other specific contexts (they are site-specific). Usually this projects start in a really small scale, and should scale-up by the powering of the community (bottom-up

innovation).

Case 1Chivor, de verdes destinos.

Sustainable and locally-based tourism.

Chivor is a small town located in the colombian mountains, around 200km from the capital city of the country, Bogota. Chivor was a prolific emerald mining town in the end of the 90’s and beginning of the 00’s, which brought plenty of wealth to the region, but also suffered the illness which mining regions suffer (even since the ‘Gold Rush’ moments in the west of US at the end of the 19th century): a rapid and sudden accumulation of wealth in a few hands, the creation of ‘mafias’ and criminal groups and a sudden abandoning of the region when the source is dried out. Now there is practically no productive activity in the region, but a huge amount of people waiting for a new mining rush.

We used these eagerness of the people to engage them on a different type of activity. To recover the social structure of this community, we created a social innovation project to involve the community in organizing a sustainable and locally-based tourism in the region. With a interdisciplinary group of people (involving sociologists, architects and designers -among others professionals), many workshops have been made to work with the community on the ideas to build locally-based businesses around the tourism industry (but also thematic tourism, for the old mines are presented as an attraction).

Chivor

Case 2Gaviotas.

A village to re-invent the world (as said by Alan Weisman).

Colombia’s eastern region, called ‘los llanos’ (the plains), is an immense extension of tree-less flat lands. Many scientists have said that these region was an extension of the Amazon rainforest, but due to biological and migratory (colonization) processes, it turned into a kind of arid flat land (also for the practicing of extensive cow farming). The once-rich layer of fertile soil that covered the land, was only considered as a geographical reference for Colombians on the 60’s, for people would not see the potential in it. That is when Paolo Lugari came to say that he could give a new life to this land, by inducting some biological processes, but also building a new community model.

He started with experimenting a way to plant caribbean pine (which he made by the introduction of a special fungi in the soil), which would restore the fertility of the land, make the community financially sustainable (by being providers of trementine and other sub-products for paint industry) and allow new species to naturally grow in the region. After that ‘small’ start, they have the biggest planted forest in Latin America (which is not chopped for wood), but have also developed a vast number of inventions site-specific to the tropic (water pumps and rams, solar powered water heaters, solar powered kitchens, among many other), which have been published freely so that any tropical community can apply them. Gaviotas started as a small-scale project, but has scaled-up to the point of becoming one of the more representative examples of sustainable development in the world.

Gaviotas

Case 3Totnes Pound (Transition Network).

A new local currency.

The basic structure of the actual economy is that there are producers and consumers, but also people that have and people that don’t (rich and poor, basically); but all this would not be possible if it wasn’t mediated by a currency that serves as a exchange value. This currency is usually dictated by organizations that have direct stakes on the value of it (e.g Goldman Sachs), which perpetuates the actual state of the economy, and does not allow all the stakeholders get involved in it. When you pay something at the supermarket, either with cash money or with a debit card, you are directly or indirectly supporting the people that manage it: banks and financial corporations.

The organization of Transition Networks, works to support ‘the community-led responses to climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy, building resilience and happiness’. One of the projects they supported was on the town of Totnes in the UK, where they supported the creation of a new local currency which would have three basic advantages compared to traditional currency: it would stay in the local scene, it would encourage local production and consumption, and it would be owned by the people, not by any external corporation. The banknotes were also made on a local printshop, who was partly payed in the currency.

Totnes pound

by Pablo Calderón Salazar