| April 2008 |
Volume
1 Issue 4 |
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Just Change ...directly linking communities |
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Our views, news and more !! |
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Editorial: WHICH WAY FORWARD? The
Just Change India Producer Company has successfully completed its
benchmarking phase and the Just Change Retail Model has been in
operation for 18 months. Time to analyse the numbers and understand
our strengths and weaknesses. Thanks to computers and number savvy
people on our team, we crunched and then crunched and crunched again,
spreadsheet after spreadsheet, to understand what these numbers say
to us. And they have said plenty. But what came out loud and clear
was – go for it!! And this message came not just from the numbers
but from our members as well. Everyone is very clear – there is no
turning back, there is no stopping us. The
Just Change
model is based on enabling organised communities of producers and
consumers to work together for mutual benefit. During the
benchmarking phase much of our effort was concentrated on setting up
the consumer end of things.The process was more organic and
evolutionary. Various experiments were tried and every now and then a
new facet would be added or something dropped. We finally
zeroed in on the Just Change Retail model which is based on 50 -100
families coming together and forming Village Consumer Societies (VCS)
to take control of the flow of money out of their local economy. |
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The
advantage of this is that we could scale up very quickly and
therefore it would make a lot of market sense. Benefit to producer
and consumer could perhaps be demonstrated much more quickly.
But we decided to hang on to our idealism and stick with the slower, but what we believe to be the much surer method of mobilising communities first. We are as much about the economics of the marketplace as we are about the politics of power. The dominant market model does not address the issues of local communities and economies finding themselves powerless to stop and alter the juggernaut of globalisation better read as corporatisation.  The
price that we will have to pay for this choice is much slower growth.
But we remain committed to building block by block, laying solid
foundations rather than go for the superstructure and then trying to
fill in the gaps. The foundation that we seek to build is one where
communities recognise their power in the marketplace and assert this
through creating their own marketing channels. Where they are aware
of the cause and effect of markets on people's livelihoods. And where
such an awareness will enable them to behave in the market not as
economic animals single mindededly chasing profit above all else but
as human beings, as communities, as a society – where values and
principles will determine the choices we make. Idealistic?? Undoubtedly. But our dreams and visions must be idealistic. How we make them happen will be realistic. Together, with effort, we are determined that we will create a situation where our communities are no longer passive victims in a global market economy but active participants reclaiming and exercising control over their local economies. |
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JC Manchester reaches out to local groups Just Change Manchester recently hosted a
series of events to encourage local community involvement in our unique
trading system - Tony Li tells us more.
Voluntary organisations across Manchester’s diverse spectrum, ranging from Fairtrade churches to local Amnesty International and Oxfam groups, were invited to attend the three introductory evenings and one workshop, which were held in November 2007 and January of this year. The events were made possible after securing a £525 grant from the European Union. In fact, only one introductory evening and workshop were planned for; however, with careful planning, budgeting and not to mention some resourcefulness in reusing and recycling bits and pieces we already had lying around for the leaky bucket game, we were able to squeeze another two events from the budget. 
The introductory evenings gave a flavour of the JC concept. We explained the history of JC, how it works and successes in the UK and India so far. We included the tea quiz and a few other interactive games. One of these games involved asking our audience to take a pile of statements and decide which of them described an aspect of Fairtrade and which described an aspect of Just Change. In this way participants gained a fresh perspective on the alternatives to Fairtrade: important as most people in the UK see Fairtrade as the only ethical trading system available to them. The workshop delved deeper, explaining how groups can get involved in JC, with advice on marketing, pricing and the types of systems they could put in place in order to make the project successful. We also played the leaky bucket game, which is no mean feat when you’re indoors and trying to keep the water from spilling on the carpet! Undoubtedly, the legacy of the evenings is that word of Just Change has spread to a larger audience.  Even some of those groups and
organisations who were not able to attend any of the events are keen to
meet with us and learn more. As we write this article, we’re
setting up
a meeting with Action
for Sustainable Living, a charity based in Manchester that
promotes sustainability and works with local communities to help them
achieve this goal. We’ve also had interest from Manchester Metropolitan
University’s Asian Society and we are currently writing an article for
the Salford
Community for Voluntary Services newsletter, which
will help to raise the profile of Just Change in Greater Manchester. Now we have a framework of evenings in place, we’re more than confident in securing further grants to host more sessions and show more of Manchester that it really isn’t that hard to Just Change! |
helped to further increase awareness of Just Change in the
Brighton–Hove area, building on the work we have already made by
attending the monthly Fair Trade market there.
Last
month we found time to stop and stare and review the progress of our
Company. What worked, what didn't. What we got right, what we
didn't. And most importantly, how do we best go forward. An
external evaluator, Dr. Joshi visited us from Development Matters, a
Pune-based consultancy firm. Dr. Joshi's life and work have been at
BAIF, an organisation that aims to create sustainable rural livelihoods
using local resources and appropriate technologies.Dr. Joshi met the
Just Change team at the BVM Producer Group, in Nilambur. After
talking
to the JC committee there, we visited the Vellilamad Village
Consumer
Society (VCS) on the other side of the Chaliyar river. Geetha
and
Sunita, who run the VCS, explained how the VCS was set up and runs,
while other members chipped in regarding the problems of credit and
repayments. The next day, members of the Saward Producer Group met with
Dr. Joshi in Calicut. His insights after these visits and meetings made
us pause to reconsider our strategies. He advised us to think of a
phase of consolidation before scaling up the operations of the company.
We have only covered a very small part of the members of our existing
organisations – three VCS' in BVM covering about 250 families; three
VCS' covering 200 families in SAWARD, AMS is still to trade. So, Dr.
Joshi argued that we had enough scope to “scale up” with the existing
members, before moving on to new members. Sound advice we thought.
Producer Company in
Madurai. They supply us with rice (which covers over 40% of our trade),
chillis, tamarind and corriander. However, we are still dependent on
the open market for many other commodities. Linking up with more
producer organisations is clearly a priority. We have begun and will
continue discussions with producers of dal, sugar, spices and other
varieties of rice, and hope to move a few steps up the market chain.