CasaCongo is a movement for sustainable development in Astillero, Nicaragua, aimed at empowering the local community through creatively engaging and socially cohesive conservation practices. The main purpose is to build a more sustainable future for Astillero, facilitating and fostering sustainable construction and environmental education, surf lessons and creative workshops.
The Casa Congo model rests on three pillars:
Community;
Conservation;
Creativity.
These three areas are considered the most lasting and effective way to bring about sustainable development, able to give benefits for all components of Astillero; educating and inspiring the local community could represent the great worth of their natural environment, a resource that when properly cared for will in turn create lasting opportunities for regenerative growth.
The main intention is to give adequate tools for the community, in order to take regenerative development into their own hands, even by facilitating the creation of a sustainable community. Through a regenerative and open dialogue with the community, the team aims at producing collaborative programs able to satisfy local needs.
The mission of the movement is described as follow:
“The dream of Casa Congo is to help build capacity for sustainable development in the community of El Astillero, Nicaragua. The people behind the project believe in fighting for future generation’s right to a clean, happy and productive environment which allows the elements of nature to coexist with mankind. This will be achieved through a dialogue from within “el pueblo”. Their goal is to empower the local community with a sense of stewardship to create long term well being and social balance. Casa Congo seek to become a centre for knowledge sharing through environmental engagement and citizen science.
The will of the volunteers is to create a space that is nurtured by local values. They want to foster an environment of open discussion and inclusion that will promote individual growth and ultimately lead to the creation of a resilient community. A community that has an active hand in shaping its own visions and dreams for the future of El Astillero. Casa Congo will be a place that integrates conservation practice, creativity and community engagement.”
To achieve this, Casa Congo’s team has shaped four programs:
The first program was entrusted to Sol Lewites, one of the three founder members of the project, who is an engineering graduate. The program is concerned with sustainable construction. The aim is to specialize in building with bamboo, a material easily available in those areas that is well suited for both carpentry and building projects designed by the team. For example As it is better clarified in the description of the project “Bamboo bike building is a sustainable social enterprise that can create business opportunities in El Astillero. The program trains locals about the sustainable properties of bamboo, giving them not only a durable form of transport but also the opportunity to be able to make an sell these bikes for a profit. These bikes are suitable for rough roads and utilise native bamboo that doesn’t cost a lot of money or put a strain on the natural environment.”
The second program concerns the ecological sphere and is under the supervision of Luca Marsaglia, another founder member, who started an environmental education course at the local high school in order to teach students the basic principles of conservation. He helped himself with the valuable contribution of Manuel Cortez, a prominent member of the community of El Astillero, who has great knowledge of the subject and now has been appointed as the official organization’s referent in this field. The ecological action of Casa Congo is not just limited to school desks. In fact, Luca Marsaglia and the volunteers who approached the project support the work of the Ministry of the Environment in the protected area of Chacocente, which is a tropical dry forest of five thousand acres that stretch to the beach. Inside this huge environment,t the forces in play before their arrival were only four Nicaraguans rangers salaried by the state. The contribution of Casa Congo to the monitoring of turtles, that nest massively in those areas, and in the processes of forestation and regeneration has been and will continue to be crucial.
The third program deals with ocean advocacy and has both sports and requalification aspects. The God of surf at El Astillero rolls waves that can reach four or five meters high and it is clear therefore why some locals have begun worshiping him. Thanks to the help of the small Astillero Surf Club, Casa Congo has started to lay the foundations of its surfing asset. The mission is to give the opportunity to become one with the ocean to people who could not afford it before the arrival of Casa Congo. Last summer, over forty surfboards were shipped from Canada, thanks to the efforts of Adam Tory, the head of the program. Free surf lessons and equipment available: now people in El Astillero are allowed to dream big. Who knows, one of the children who is now having fun dancing on the foams near the shore, tomorrow could be crowned world champion. “The program and the equipment will be managed by the local surf club which has contacts with the professional surfing network in Nicaragua. Casa Congo want to provide ocean safety education and give the local community the resources to be able to run their own business whilst learning the fun and physically beneficial sport of surfing.”, When the ocean does not provide any wave, the sports side makes room for requalification. The locals and the activists of Casa Congo spread out all over the village to clean up. “El Astillero is a beautiful place yet the urban and rural areas are contaminated by rubbish. Forests, beaches, roads and rivers are polluted, due to the lack of a sustainable garbage collection systems and appropriate community awareness. This project is a founding pillar of our conservation mission and will be focused on providing garbage collection tools (i.e. custom designed bamboo bins) and activities with the community to promote a clean environment”.
The fourth program concerns with art as a vehicle for awareness raising on environmental issues. The project took advantage of Lily Keenan’s direction. She is an Australian artist who took care of children’s painting courses as well as embellishing the center of the town of El Astillero with beautiful murals. Casa Congo is an adventure brought forward in the interest of people and creatures populating those sun-kissed lands. And it has only just started.
Credits: Tim Nathan
Their numerous projects address the main areas of action in different ways, but with the long term goal of empowering the community to achieve a lasting prosperity and harmony with the environment.
Casa Congo è un’organizzazione sorta con lo scopo di promuovere la conservazione del ricco ecosistema che circonda El Astillero, un villaggio situato in Nicaragua sulla costa che si affaccia verso l’Oceano Pacifico.
“Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons” is the new publication from the non-profit media outlet Shareable, which collects 137 case studies divided in 11 categories in order to demonstrate that another city governance model is possible, and is in fact, already in the making. By showcasing initiatives from all over the world, and in particular from the US and Europe, Sharing Cities unfolds as a concrete testament to the richness, creativity and diversity of the world of urban commons today. Indeed, the book is structured as a powerful storytelling and showcasing work of the best practices in the field of urban commons. Such collections represent the starting point for the work that LabGov is carrying on with the drafting of the scientific research project known as the Co-Cities Report¹.
Shareable has been one of the key initiators of the Sharing Cities movement: they organized ShareFS in 2011, the first event held under the joint theme of sharing cities, and in 2013 they launched the Sharing Cities Network to connect local sharing activists in cities around the world for mutual support and movement building.
Before presenting an overview of the wide range of urban commons projects presented in Sharing Cities, it is important to mention the introductory theoretical framework developed by Neal Gorenflo. Indeed, the co-founder of Shareable introduces the collection of case-studies by providing the theoretical background on the study of urban commons, acknowledging the analytical contribution of scholars like Christian Iaione from LabGov, Sheila Foster from georgetown University, Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation, and David Bollier of the Commons Strategies Group, among others.
Gorenflo adfirms, There are 67 case studies and 66 model policies in this book. Though the book only scratches the surface of what’s out there, the geographic and sectoral diversity of our selections will expand your view of what’s possible. Together, they are provocative in the best possible way. In terms of the case studies, I challenge you to flip through the book and not be amazed at what ordinary people can do when they commit to projects where personal interests and the common good are aligned.
In particular, citing the work of Christian Iaione and Sheila Foster, as well as the seminal urban commons initiatives like the CO-Bologna project and regulation², the book underlines the importance of urban commons initiatives in today’s context of citizens disempowerment. As the introduction argues “the importance of the urban commons to cities today is that it situates residents as the key actors – not markets, technologies, or governments, as popular narratives suggest – at a time when people feel increasingly powerless. To paraphrase commons scholars Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione, the city as a commons is a claim on the city by the people.” What is key to understand when talking about the urban commons framework is that it is not only about sharing resources, knowledge, and tools. Sharing for the sake of innovative profit making lacks the fundamental constitutive element of the commons, that is the creation of collaborative relationships between urban residents, NGOs, public institutions and businesses in order to manage resources in urban communities in a way that gives the decision-making power back to the people.
After the introduction on urban commons, the book dedicates 11 chapters to the different categories of commons, namely: Housing, mobility, food, work, energy, land, waste, water, information and communication technology, finance, and governance³. Ranging from cases of co-housing, open-data initiatives, comprehensive shared mobility projects, open access edible plots of land, networks of workers cooperatives, commons collaborative economy initiatives, community energy distribution networks, to examples of commons regulatory frameworks, this book represents an inspiring proof of the existence of new governance models that can ensure an alternative, more sustainable, way-forward. These cases and policies reveal a new model of city, where people has been put at the centre, having a primary role among market priorities, technologies or government. Moreover, it is not a simple demonstration that a city run by the people is possible, but it unveils that much of it is already here. In this perspective, the book represents a claim.
Shareable launched a crowdfunding campaign, that is part of a three-years strategic plan, as a step towards the big goal of establishing Shareable as a financially resilient organization by 2020.
La nuova pubblicazione di Shareable intitolata “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons”approfondisce il tema dei commons, mostrando attraverso 133 casi studio, come il modello di governance dei commons rappresenti un’alternativa valida e realizzabile per la gestione condivisa delle risorse al livello urbano.
On the 25th of July, 2017, a law proposal on the commons and active citizenship was presented in the Regional Council of Tuscany, Italy. This is the first regional law on the commons in the Italian context. The law proposal concerns the “Social subsidiarity and civic collaboration for the governance of the urban commons for the application of articles 58 and 59 of the Regional Bylaws”. As highlighted by the President of the Regional Council Eugenio Giani, the director of the legislative office Gemma Pastore, and the secretary general Silvia Fantappiè the aim of the law proposal is to prepare the ground for a renewed relationship between public and private actors, based on the general interest, through the implementation of the concepts of subsidiarity, civic collaboration and the commons. The regional law is also aimed at providing an impulse for the Municipalities in Tuscany for initiating policymaking processes for the regeneration of the urban commons, as a duty of responsibility toward future generations.
This proposal is a step forward in the long-term commitment of the Region of Tuscany to improve and promote participation, cooperation, and civic collaboration principles for the commons and the collaborative economy. Indeed, the Region has promoted the #CollaboraToscana process (2016- 2017). Activated by the Presidency Department of Tuscany (which holds the mandate to innovation and participation) with the aim of drafting a green book outilning a regional policy on sharing and collaborative economy. #CollaboraToscana represents a first experience at regional, national and international level in the co-creation of a public policy on sharing economy through the involvement of local actors. The process is inspired by the principles and methods used in 2011-2014 for the development of the Bologna Regulation and by the drafting process of the Opinion on the local and regional dimension of the Sharing Economy produced by the Committee of the Regions of the European Union. The process, constituted by an intense fieldwork with co-working sessions organized in Florence with the participation of relevant actors of the sharing economy and social innovation ecosystem in Tuscany has had the scientific support of the international research project “Co-Città e Co-Territory”, developed by Labgov, and is curated in his methodological component by Sociolab, with the support of Collaboriamo.
Una proposta di legge su Beni comuni e Cittadinanza attiva è stata illustrata il 25 luglio 2017 in Consiglio regionale della Regione Toscana. Il testo rappresenta il primo caso di legge regionale a trattare il tema dei beni comuni, intesi non singolarmente, ma come categoria.
Image Source: Regione Toscana, http://www.regione.toscana.it/
In today’s connected world, access to the internet should be an essential service, like water or electricity. And just like water and electricity, it should be available to everyone, regardless of circumstance.
Building entirely new networks, cities, supported by internet service providers and mobile carriers is good but it would be better if you are able to leverage already existing networks, like all the private residential Wi-Fi networks that are already spread throughout the city. Imagine turning every home currently connected to the internet into a mini Wi-Fi hotspot serving the public, so that anytime a subscriber walked past a participating home network their phones would automatically connect to that Wi-Fi network, thereby lessening their own data charges and significantly reducing the strain on mobile carrier networks. All this is made possible by home subscribers giving up a small, likely unused, percentage of their Wi-Fi to make it available for public use.
This kind of initiative started a couple of years ago in Spain, where Martin Varsavsky founded a company (Fon) with the mission of blanketing the world with Wi-Fi. Now Fon is an international company, supported by some of the world’s most important telcos (Google, Microsoft, British Telecom and Deutsche Telekom and Qualcomm) and in 2014 it broke the barrier with 14 million Fon hotspots.
This project is very important because it aims to help people overcome the barriers they might face when using technology, giving access to the internet to hundreds of people who currently can’t get online. That means you can check and send emails, use your social network, watch videos and browse the web, all without spending money.
Luckily, all over the world there are a lot of Wi-Fi communities that have a common, simple and fast operation. First of all, it is necessary to join the community and there are two ways to go: either you are a customer of the company that provides broadband services (in this case, by agreeing to get free and unlimited access to other consumers’ hotspots) or you have to buy pre-paid vouchers or subscriptions to be part of the Wi-Fi community. Secondly, you must download the dedicated app for smartphones and tablets where entering your username and password. Once installed, the app will use your location to show a list of nearby free hotspots that can be in bars, hotels, shops, schools, hospitals, banks but also in private homes. Finally, when you choose your favorite hotspot, you are connected and you can surf the net.
In addition to this, as Alison Powell pointed out in 2011, Wi-Fi communities could have a positive outcome on civic culture because it is clear that these projects are able to “motivate volunteers to participate in building technology and working towards shared social goals. They also hold the potential to shift the provision of communications access away from corporate and towards more public interest models”.
The World Bank estimates that for every 10% penetration of internet access, a country’s GDP grows by 1,28%, so it is useful to work with local, provincial and national government to provide Wi-Fi in communities for the purpose of education, economic development and social inclusion, enabling access to the internet as a catalyst for change. Community Wi-Fi holds a lot of potential for enabling a functional connected future, where the barriers between private and public Wi-Fi blur to the extent that both humans and machines are able to be constantly and reliably connected. The key to ensuring that the connected city, and indeed the connected world works, is to make sure that just as the traffic on our streets is regulated, so too is the data traffic in our air.
Il futuro della diffusione della “connettività per tutti” non risiede solo negli investimenti infrastrutturali delle grandi compagnie del settore tech ma anche nella condivisione della connessione privata dei vari utenti. Le Wi-Fi Community, in modo spontaneo, stanno riuscendo sempre di più a fornire l’accesso ad Internet a milioni di persone in tutto il mondo che altrimenti non ne avrebbero la possibilità
In the last few years, the commons have enriched themselves with their entry into political institutions at the level of states, large cities or regions, whether in Bolivia, Ecuador, Spain, Britain, France, Italy, and elsewhere in the world. How can this encounter inspire us? How does the commons paradigm fit with other proposals for a post-capitalist alternative, such as de-growth, social and solidarity economy, political ecology, open cooperativism, and much more? How to avoid the “commons washing” and recovery of the project and the values of the commons in the dominant discourse?
Professor Christian Iaione, LabGov coordinator, was between the experts and practitioners interviewed in this occasion. In his speech he touches on different topics: from the experiences that are taking place in numerous Italian cities around the urban commons to the importance of creating a stronger network of cities committed to addressing emerging urban issues; from the understanding of the value of experimentation to development of the capacity to address failure; from the importance to involve all local actors in the care and regeneration of the urban commons to the exigency of rethinking the role of the State and of the local administration.
