The Power of Partnership
What if there is a way to transform society and create a world that values caring, nature, and shared prosperity? The POP podcast brings you the voices of people who are doing just that - people who are applying the Partnership ethos, the ground-breaking alternative to Domination Systems that are the root of our most pressing challenges. The Partnership movement was pioneered by Riane Eisler, internationally acclaimed author of The Chalice and the Blade, Nurturing Our Humanity, Sacred Pleasures, Tomorrow's Children, The Real Wealth of Nations and many more! Each episode includes information about essential tools from the Center for Partnership Systems, and beyond, to move away from the domination paradigm and create a Partnership world!
The Power of Partnership
Community Currencies for Shared Prosperity with Caroline Dama
In this episode, host Cherri Jacobs Pruitt interviews Caroline Dama, Country Coordinator at Green World Campaign, Kenya on how she is co-creating Partnership-based economic and environmental solutions with communities in Kenya that are regenerative, self-sustaining, and in harmony with the earth and other human beings.
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, Riane Eisler (https://centerforpartnership.org/resources/books/the-chalice-and-the-blade-our-history-our-future/)
The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics, Riane Eisler (https://centerforpartnership.org/resources/books/the-real-wealth-of-nations-creating-a-caring-economics/)
Green World Campaign: Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram
Community Currencies for a More Just and Equitable Society, Caroline Dama Madagow; Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies, Vol. 11 Not. 1, 2024-06-20 (https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/ijps/article/view/5969)
The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships that will Change Your Life, Riane Eisler (https://centerforpartnership.org/resources/books/the-power-of-partnership/)
Center for Partnership Systems (https://centerforpartnership.org/)
center@partnershipway.org
Resilience, Rising Appalachia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx17RvPMaQ8
Welcome to the Power of Partnership podcast. I'm Rianne Eisler, President of the Center for Partnership Systems. This podcast brings you voices from the partnership movement people using partnership practices to build a world that values caring nature and shared prosperity. The Power of Partnership podcast is hosted by Cherry Jacobs-Pruitt, a health policy and partnership scholar. Today, Cherry interviews Caroline Dama, country coordinator at Green World Campaign, Kenya. Caroline will share how she is working with communities in Kenya to create partnership-based economic and environmental solutions, Solutions that are regenerative, self-sustaining and in harmony with the Earth and other human beings. And now on to today's POP podcast, TOP Podcast.
Speaker 2:Hello, Caroline. On behalf of Rianne Eisler and the entire Center for Partnership Systems team, I want to welcome you to the Power of Partnership Podcast. I'm so looking forward to our discussion together. Caroline, can we start by you sharing a bit of your personal journey bringing you to our interview today, including how you first learned about Rian Eisler?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd like to say thank you. It's an honor to be here and I really admire what you do and how you're able to amplify the various voices out there and how they support communities Part of my work. I'm from an indigenous community who are a minority group, and in my country, of course, you get some of us that are benefited from affirmative action and able to go out there and get a good education, and so part of my life ethos was how do I go back and give back what I've learned? How do I go back and, you know, share and also learn from my communities and build systems, you know, that are regenerative but also that are anchored in caring for each other, because when you experience the world, you feel there's a sense of disconnection, and so my life is about finding ways to connect my communities, and, of course, that requires a lot of reading. Part of that brought me to most of Rianne Hesler's works, especially the Chalice and the Blade and the Real Wealth of Nations.
Speaker 2:Lovely.
Speaker 3:Lovely, so can you give our listeners a high-level introduction to the Greening the World campaign that you work with? Projects with the communities that are in coastal areas, with a special focus on communities that are in arid and semi-arid lands, and so most of them are smallholder farmers that are really impacted by climate change as they depend heavily on rain-fed agriculture. Right now, we are working on helping communities build regenerative food and water catchment systems. So if you want to build resilient system, of course it starts with building capacity of the communities. Now what does that look like? It starts with listening. You have to anchor yourself in the experiences and then, in so doing, together with the communities, you identify the gaps in capacity.
Speaker 3:When it comes to rain-fed agriculture, communities have to find ways to adapt to climate change, and so that means that they have to first start by restoring degraded lands, so we do a lot of biodiversity planting. Apart from that, we also work in zones that are in food systems. That means helping communities adapt agroforestry, permaculture, organic farming and also ways of natural water harvesting, and so we anchor ourselves from schools and you may ask why schools? Because they are representative of the community. When you go to a school, you get every single community member represented there through a child, and you can start by building the capacity of future generations. And we have the schools as resource centers, like action learning centers, and from them we work with the farmers and the youth groups and they're able to build food systems from it.
Speaker 3:For food systems to be resilient it requires also a lot of life skills support. That means financial literacy training and how to choose good leaders, how to be able to manage their resources well, how to also seek partners Because part of Rian's work that I learned about especially is the partnership model, and so I really try to have that in my community model for them to be able to come together, not find ways to have a mismatch of how the communities view each other, and so we design projects around that. And apart from that, you can't have resilient food and water catchment systems if you don't look at the economic angle of it. Most communities are degrading their landscapes because they're looking for sources of livelihood, and so for our communities, they're also receiving support in how to do value addition, how to do agribusinesses, how to come together and pull their resources and support each other in how they see fit.
Speaker 2:So, carolina, I understand the Green World Campaign. Kenya helped establish the first successful community currency in Kenya, called EcoPesa. Before I ask you to share more about this, can you describe what community currencies actually are and what needs they're addressing?
Speaker 3:Okay, so the term community currency is an umbrella term. It's used to be able to identify different forms of alternative currencies that are out there, and, as of 2012, there are almost an estimated 4,000 community currencies in the world, and you know, that's really key because it means that communities are seeing a gap in the current monetary system, and community currencies are usually named based on how they design and the function that the community wants to serve. So you'd find community currencies that are like time banks, so it's whereby people value time, and they say Sherry can give one hour of her time and return she can receive one hour time to four or whatever. And then you have what you call barter systems, whereby people can be able to trade goods and services. So there are different forms of them.
Speaker 3:We also have what we call complementary currencies. These are ones that go in tandem with the national currencies, so they complement other national currencies, and one main feature about them is that they're counter-cyclical, which means that, in terms of lower liquidity, when communities can't access enough of the national currency, they tend to use more of the community currencies, and so there are different ones. And, of course, it depends on the use more of the community currencies and so there are different ones, and of course it depends the different needs of the communities.
Speaker 2:So can you use Ecopesa as an example of what that community currency specifically uses and looks like?
Speaker 3:Okay. So when we started Ecopesa because we are an environmental organization we partnered with an organization that right now is called Grassroots Economics Foundation, and the premise behind Ecopesa was that for most communities they lack liquidity, so they want to be able to benefit their communities, but most of the time people can't pay for their services, especially the youth. African countries have the largest number of youth, which means we have a large labor base, but then you find also we have high unemployment, and some of the reason is because people can't give them jobs. So we wanted to be able to fill that gap. Was it possible to have a way to come up with a voucher system whereby youth could take part in cleanups in the communities and then businesses could be able to pay them in vouchers? And so essentially, a voucher is like a promissory note. It's a promise that as long as you hold this voucher, you can be able to come to a business and access goods and services. So in so doing, it's able to give the youth employment.
Speaker 3:But also the businesses that are worried about you know the state of where they are maybe it's not clean, they need somebody to be able to do the cleanups and maybe it's filling a gap where the county council was not able to. So there was that and in return the youth could be able to come back to the businesses and then they could be able to access goods and services. What was unique about EcoPesa was that it got donor backing and the businesses were able to exchange it for Kenya shillings. Later on that they were able to reinvest back into their businesses. So that's how it was designed. It was to fill that gap mostly unemployment and also an opportunity for businesses to be able to provide that employment to youth and, apart from that, also giving youth a chance to contribute, you know, to be part of the social system.
Speaker 2:So is it still in place? Is it still being used?
Speaker 3:So Ecopesa went through different, so it started as Ecopesa and of course that was voucher-based. And then we ended up also we had different communities replicate that and for some of the communities they did barter systems. We also had one for rural community whereby it was essentially it was a food insecure community and so what we did we were designing vouchers whereby communities essentially could circulate it among them. So communities didn't have money. You're getting that people are just staying at home because they lack money just to go buy food and yet you'll find that there's a business in the community that is throwing away excess food and so essentially it's saying that it's just because they don't have a piece of paper.
Speaker 3:And if the community can be able to back each other because what is money?
Speaker 3:It's just a record of exchange, it's a unit of value and if you can be able to look at those aspects of it and form something that can circulate within the community, that essentially is a promise and it will store value and it is a record.
Speaker 3:And so communities, even when they don't have money, they can be able to take and they can be able to access goods and services. And also the beauty of it is that it supports local businesses. Because sometimes when you bring outside businesses to a community, they are coming to extract resources. They come, make their profit and they go find a foreign bank. It doesn't have to be outside the country, it could be in another town. They put their money there and they are good and so essentially they just come to a community to mop up. But when you have a currency that works like a community currency, it does not leave the community. You can only use it within a particular community. So if you want to create employment, it's within that particular community. If there are businesses that are struggling, the community is able to support them by buying from them.
Speaker 2:So it is localized in that way, so specific to the taxes that government needs to fund government services. How are you finding that you're able to resolve that disconnect with the community currency programs?
Speaker 3:I feel that most governments don't like the notion of monetary system that's running parallel to a national currency. It's not something that they like, but I hope that they can be able to look at the complementary nature of them, the fact that they, throughout history, they're able to come up during times when community are in need, even if they stop being used later. What's important is that there was a gap that people felt was not being met, and if you can be able to study the different gaps that they've been able to fill, it's really important. And if you can be able to study the different gaps that they've been able to fill, it's really important. Apart from that, as a government, how do you tax a community that can't even feed themselves and how are you, as a government, going to ensure that that particular community is feeding itself? Because a lot of governments it's not just communities are also grappling with a lot of debt, and that has a trickle-down effect to their communities high interest rates, a lot of communities are taking loans that they're not being able to pay back and so they're not meeting their needs.
Speaker 3:It's going to show up in higher crime rates. It's going to show up in more and more children not going to school because communities have to prioritize. You're going to have crises of communities that cannot even house themselves. They are not able to feed themselves three square meals a day, they are not able to access medical care, so it's going to be able to show in different ways.
Speaker 3:And so if we can be able to complement these systems in ways that it means that you free communities, and when communities are free of worry, they are able to participate more in development issues, they are willing to give more to development. Because there is no single parent out there that will want to pay a tax and they've not been able to feed their child. There's no single parent out there that, even if they are really in tune with their land and they see that my child has been hungry for two days, will not cut down a tree to feed that child. And if, as governments, they want to be able to collect the funds to be able to do infrastructure projects and all other projects, then they need to find alternatives for communities, especially low-income communities. They also have to find ways to support women and caregivers.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the Power of Partnership podcast. We hope you are enjoying today's episode and you will consider joining our family of sponsors, or you can help us attract sponsors by downloading, following or subscribing to the series and liking and rating each episode you view on YouTube. We also would love to hear from you, including if you have a partnership story that you would like to share. Reach out to us at center at partnershipwayorg. And now back to today's episode.
Speaker 3:And support comes in many ways. Sometimes you can give them money, but if they're overwhelmed, if they're not able to access support within their community, then we are not doing right. And so it's important to really look at where what went wrong in the design, because sometimes the fault is in the design and something went wrong, and that's why we're having a lot of chaos right now. Everyone is feeling like something is not right, and that's why there's so much extraction, and that's why we are living in a world where we're having five people that have more than half the world's wealth and yet we have 5 million people that are being told they're below poverty, and that can't be right. It can't be right. It shouldn't be right. I don't think we should want to live in a world like that.
Speaker 2:What was happening historically that has created the conditions right now that you're trying to turn around with your programs.
Speaker 3:Okay, thank you for that question. Historically, or even among the indigenous communities, especially African countries, we had a caring with the economy systems. We had very strong social cultures, but, as you know, of course, when there's a lot of disruption, that took place One with colonialism, it disrupted all that, and of course with it came with introduction of capitalist economic models that it's about amassing wealth at the expense of the entire community, and so right now you get a lot of disintegration in the community. Everyone is just trying to be wealthy for the sake of themselves. There is not that sense of we are all together in this, and so a lot of my communities are going through that. And of course, because they lack the necessary support system, they always go back and you know they degrade their landscapes as in their quest for livelihood. That means failing indigenous trees, failing forests, even using their land in the wrong way. And of course you'll find that for communities, especially farming-based communities, their only source of livelihood is from their land, and sometimes, if they come to a system whereby they're disintegrated, they lack the correct social structures that would support them. They are also staying in their silos, and so for my communities, it's just to almost remind them what that felt like and to figure a way for us to be able to reconnect with each other, to support each other and also to get them away from the idea that our wealth comes from money only. Our wealth also comes from our sense of community and how we're able to have a shared prosperity and how we're able to reach out to others, not dominate over others, and how we can share ideas. And so that's the kind of communities are there, but it's just going to remind them. And so that's the kind of communities are there, but it's just going to remind them. And hence I always like saying to co-create solutions, because the solutions are already there, we already had the knowledge. It's just to remind ourselves how to.
Speaker 3:So I can give one good example. In my community I come from the coastal Kenya we would do what we call almost like a form of barter trade of services. So if I need to be able to build a house, I build the house, and then we all come together and we build the house. And you know this is a story my grandmother told me it wasn't about somebody buying labor. They all came together and they built one person's house and the next time they would go build somebody else's house so they would go around, you know, supporting each other, and if you needed your farm to be farmed, they would all come and do it on your farm and next time they'd go to somebody else If you needed somebody to take care of your children and you weren't there. It was a communal thing and so we were able to be able to share that, share services, because right now I was able to note that Rian is really trying to amplify that we are not even being able to reward the care economy and all the burden that comes with women caring.
Speaker 3:It could be caring for children, it could be caring for the elderly, it could be caring for children, it could be caring for the elderly. And how do we value that? We've not found a way in the monetary system to be able to value that. My, there are parts of the indigenous knowledge. There were things indigenous communities used to do, things that were maybe almost told that were wrong, that ended up fragmenting communities, making them go away from that, and that kind of knowledge is being lost. The aspect that they say it takes a village to raise a child it came from that because it was about the whole village Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Can you share a bit about the program you were recently acknowledged for as a climate hero by the Climate Heroes, which is a not for profit media project that shares the stories of inspirational models in mitigating climate change?
Speaker 3:Yes, I'd be glad to. Climate Heroes was about going to the communities and looking for ways that we are able to share our stories with the communities. For that particular one, they were looking at an existing work that I was doing with school children the schools model and so I have a strong belief that, for us to be able to do sustainable projects, it's about ensuring that our children don't repeat our mistakes, and we can't make that happen unless we give them the requisite knowledge. We have to connect them back with our land. We have to show them how to be able to regenerate landscapes. We have to inculcate in them a sense of social responsibility, and so, for me, I like that aspect of my project being able to go to the schools and share that, teaching children how to be able to set up tree and vegetable nurseries, and then for them to be able to go teach their communities, to learn the beauty of going to replant forests in places that were cut, and also to be able to go to sacred forests that were there before and, you know, being able to talk with leaders, to be able to harvest seeds of the indigenous and to bring them back alive and, more importantly, I want them to learn about their biodiversity and the sense that we do not own. We share it with others and we are part of that biodiversity, and I think that is also lost from the human race the fact that it is not just about us, it's about all the others, also the animals, the plants and so it's really important for me to be able to share that.
Speaker 3:And, of course, with the school model, I've been able to interact with their parents also, and for parents, I always want to know is what is it that they can do now, not later, because one or the other climate really impacts us, and I want them to also have that sense of yes, there are mistakes that were made, but here's an opportunity to be better, to show up better, and so for me, successful models is whereby parents are able to come to schools, show children how to be able to plant trees right, take care of them you know, having that shared responsibility and also take part in planting initiatives with their children. I think that really sticks, so I'm hoping through that project we're able to transform future generations. What I like about the current generation, especially of our children, is that they're really in tune with that something is wrong and they really want to be able to talk about it and sometimes they miss the right platforms. And having projects like this that give them the words or how to say it and also gives them an opportunity to go out there and talk about it, I think is really important. Beautiful.
Speaker 2:So is this type of program formally endorsed with the Kenyon school system, or are you doing this work with children and their parents outside of the school day, for instance?
Speaker 3:Yes, so every time I design my projects, I'm having the concept of sustainability in mind, and most of the time is to anchor yourself in existing initiatives, and most of the time, governments have the possibility to be able to provide an enabling environment for that to take place. For us to be able to do the school project, we had to get permission from the Minister of Education and, of course, we had to explain how it aligns with their overall goals of how the kind of citizen that they want to bring forth. So, yes, there is the permission, and most of it is being done in public schools Because currently, right now, the government has rolled out what they call the competency-based curriculum. The government has rolled out what they call the competency-based curriculum and for them, it's about children gaining competencies in different areas, and so we wanted to be also an answer to that, to show that they need competencies, especially when it comes to environmental education, on how to take care of their diversity.
Speaker 2:Before we end our time together, caroline, I want to ask you if there are resources or suggestions you'd like to recommend to those wanting to learn more about community currencies, or, specifically, the Greening the World campaign.
Speaker 3:Okay To learn more about Greening the World campaign Kenya. Luckily for us, we live in a moment where there's a lot of sharing on social media, so we have social media handles and, of course, our website and community currencies, and I'd be glad to share some resources that I don't know if they can appear in the credits, and I hope that it will lead to us rethinking how we view the world and how we view how we support each other.
Speaker 2:Caroline, before we close, I wonder if you have any final words you'd like to share with our listeners about co-creating a regenerative world that truly creates shared prosperity for all world that truly creates shared prosperity for all.
Speaker 3:Thank you, sherry, for the opportunity to be here.
Speaker 3:I just want to say that I'm hoping that through this, we all get time to really rethink how we view the world and how we interact with each other and how we value our service to each other and how we value our service to each other, and I'm hoping that it helps us also find that part of ourselves that decides what's important.
Speaker 3:And I'm hoping, by talking about community currencies, we see that true wealth does not lie in amassing all the wealth in the world so that you can stay on top of your castle and look as the masses grapple and they can't meet their daily bread. I hope that people will see that true wealth comes in shared prosperity. Shared prosperity is about all of us being able to access social support, economic support, ecological support or support, in whatever way that we see it. Social true wealth will come from how we are able to also support each other as communities, and I'm hoping that we'll find a way to do that. But, most importantly, I'm hoping that we'll realize we've made mistakes along the way way and that it's about time that we show a different story to our children, and part of it is taking part in this and, yeah, I look forward to that. Sharing a different story.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you, too. Thank you for listening to the Power of Partnership podcast. Thank you, too. Thank you for listening to the Power of Partnership podcast. We're grateful to Rising Appalachia for the use of resilience as our Power of Partnership theme music. If you would like us to feature your partnership story or if you would like to be a proud sponsor of the Power of Partnership podcast, please contact us at center at partnershipwayorg. Please contact us at center at partnershipwayorg. We hope you enjoyed this episode and will leave us a review on your favorite podcast channel. And don't forget to subscribe to be notified when new episodes are released. Every other Tuesday. I'm Cherry Jacobs-Pruitt. See you next time on the Power of Partnership podcast.