I 138 Collaborative services
¹ Työ & Toimint is an association in Helsinki (Finland) which provides work for unemployed, rehabilitated, immigrant and/or disabled people, and promotes the policy of sustainable development, for example by increasing the life cycle of consumer goods. ² Omaabi is a self-help community of elderly retired people that runs a shop and a little diner in Tallinn (Estonia), providing opportunities to socialise, sell home-made handcrafts and eat out for the lowest prices in town. ³ The Coach House Trust is a non-profit organisation in Glasgow (UK) that seeks to challenge the economic and social exclusion of adults with mental health problems, recovering from addiction or with learning difficulties who find it difficult to find and keep a job. ⁴ Café Zoïde, in Paris (France), is a combination of a neighbourhood workshop and a café, independent from the school system but providing educational yet liberating surroundings for children. ⁵ Ayrshire LETS is a community in Ayrshire (UK) based on the mutual exchange of services and skills among the members, where innovative forms of trading (from gift wrapping to plumbing) between individuals and community businesses are encouraged. ⁶ Prendi a casa uno studente is an intergenerational house sharing in Milan (Italy), which helps students find cheap, familystyle accommodation, while giving lonely but independent elders help, companionship and financial support. ⁷ Huiskamerrestaurant Schuif ‘s Aan is a collaborative service led in Oosterhout (The Netherlands), through which people who love cooking use their skills to cook for a larger group, enabling at the same time people to get a cheap dinner in a home setting. ⁸ Nublu mini kindergarten is a family childcare business in Tabasalu (Estonia), which aims to create a pleasant place for children to visit and stay: children can be picked up from their homes and they are treated as individuals and according to their individual characters.
due to isolation of individuals and families in small self sufficient dwellings, too much emphasis on simple provider-customer relations, alienation from nature, problems of urban crime and pollution and perceived over-consumption. At a more general cultural level a number of them also are aesthetic reactions to ugly surroundings; initiatives to enhance beauty and harmony. Inclusion of marginal groups Aquarius - Social elderly community of age 55+ is mainly an example of social inclusion. It is social community of older people, established in 1990 by a creative community in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Participants have their own private home and garden, but they also use a communal space and a large communal garden. There is a committee to organise the community. In many ways Aquarius seems like a perfect solution to the situation for elderly people. Aquarius is the institution where one would wish to live in retirement age and a place where one would like to see ones parents living as well At home many elderly are lonely and they feel insecure. At the large institutions they can also feel loneliness and they surely experience limited degrees of freedom. We see two main advantages with the Aquarius model. It is an ideal combination of privacy and collectivism, and an excellent solution to ageing problems. Cases initiated mainly to achieve inclusion should probably be seen as reactions to social trends that tend to isolate and “atomize” individuals. A successful reintegration of marginalised persons is perceived as an important element in general social quality. Other promising cases working on this dimension might be Työ & Toiminta - Job and Action Association¹ , the Omaabi - Self help community² , the Coach House Trust³ and the Cafezoïde - Playground café⁴ . But even a project like Ayrshire LETS (Local Exchange Trading System)⁵ has strong elements of inclusion, active participation and tighter social fabric. In the social inclusion initiatives, we notice three different models of agency. In Aquarius resourceful persons engage in improving their own living conditions by going beyond what the welfare state normally will be able to offer. In Omaabi marginal persons (marginality mainly caused by poverty) organise in order to protect themselves, while the Coach House Trust is mainly characterised by resourceful idealists who engage for improving the conditions of others. These three approaches to marginality are all valid reactions to some of the shortcomings of state social security and protection against an anarchic economy, even when social and economical conditions are very varied. All of them might be elements in a developing new active concept of welfare through citizen participation.
Rethinking extended houses Nidi in Casa - Nurseries at home, Milan, Italy is a flexible and customized home nursery for small groups of children under three years of age, and an example of the extended house dimension. They give alternatives for families who are unable to find a place in existing nurseries, and they provide job opportunities, not least for immigrant women. The municipality promotes the service. Added benefits would be interaction and socializing for children. The service is promoted by the Municipality of San Donato Milanese and provided by a cooperative that offers professional infancy care to small groups of 2-3 children under 3 years old. Nursery at home is mainly a response to a present lack of other forms of childcare. In northern Europe it would probably be regarded as a backward step, compared with offering a sufficient number of places in ordinary nurseries. Home nurseries will however increase the flexibility for families with small children. The main drivers behind extended house initiatives are limited living space, reducing living costs by using the economics of scale and the more general pleasure of cooperation and interaction. To a certain degree they also exemplify a kind of transition from products to services. Cases partly defined by this dimension are Prendi a casa uno studente - Lodge a student at home⁶ , the Huiskamerrestaurant Schuif ‘s Aan - Living Room Restaurant⁷ and the NUBLU Minilasteaed - Mini kindergarten⁸. New solidarity between producers and consumers GAS Gruppo d’Acquisto Solidale - Group purchasing organisation an example of the new solidarity movement. GAS is an informal grassroots organisation of people with similar needs and values in terms of purchasing products that don’t violate human rights and the environment. Bridges between rural and urban communities Attempts at rebuilding a more direct link between urban and rural communities is one of the strongest tendencies in the research project material. The motives vary from one case to another; we find practical, economic, environmental and political argumentation behind the actions. Some of the cases try to solve an urgent problem, others have a more long-term vision. Gemüsekiste - Vegetable Box is a social enterprise in Germany that weekly delivers a box of vegetables and fruits. The interesting sociological aspect of these boxes is that they create a new distributional channel between producers of agricultural products and consumers. If you want to support local and/or organic production you have to challenge the existing distribution system. In addition consumers learn a lot of how and when the various agricultural products are produced, and even how they can be consumed in new ways. A lot of the cases related to eating