Collaborative call to collective action : Creative solutions that ensure ecological, economic, and racial justice. (United States)
Creative Wildfire – United States
Social Solidarity Economy entity description:
Creative Wildfire is a collaborative call to collective action from frontline communities, represented by Climate Justice Alliance, Movement Generation, and New Economy Coalition, and endorsed by the US Solidarity Economy Network, to resist a post-covid return to normal and build a just transition now.
The beneficiaries consist primarily of the members of the aforementioned networks and organizations.
Creative Wildfire is a member of USSEN
Covid-19 context:
The Global Pandemic and the continued injustice toward people and the planet are changing life as we know it. So much is being lost, taken away, or destroyed. We say: enough is enough. As parts of our world re-open, we’re told it’s safe to return to “normal.” But what is normal, really? Normal is careless. Normal is ableist. Normal is profit over life. Normal is having a boss. Normal is not getting paid what you deserve. Normal is the theft of land and life, and the myth of white supremacy. Normal is what got us into this mess in the first place.
We have histories of advancing bold, visionary solutions that nourish regenerative solidarity economies. We carefully and lovingly hold the threads of these histories in our present work as we repair relations and remember our way forward. It is time to assert OUR solutions. Creative solutions that ensure ecological, economic, and racial justice.
As we resist going back to “normal”, we have the power to move money to real community solutions. Defunding, dismantling, and abolishing the systems that cause us harm — police and prisons, corporate healthcare, Wall Street profiteering, fossil fuel extraction — is critical but only half of the bridge toward justice. The second half is reinvesting the resources that exist in our communities to build cooperative, caring, connected, community-controlled institutions that provide for our needs.
General description of the Social Solidarity Economy initiative:
It calls on groups to study, fund, & act and is a network of networks of grassroots actors.
Key actions / activities:
The network is working on moving the “Creative Wildfire” manifesto into popular culture by working with artists and cultural workers to amplify the strategic frameworks and grassroots solutions of frontline organizations towards a larger transformative cultural shift of restoring governance to the people and re-rooting economic decisions locally. A call for artists has already been issued.
Key partners:
Climate Justice Alliance, Movement Generation, and New Economy Coalition, and endorsed by Los Higuerones Cooperativa, PUEBLO, Colaborativa La Milpa, Charleston Climate Coalition, Cooperation SLC, Post Growth Institute, Georgia Cooperative Development Center, Art.coop, Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution, The Center for Sustainable and Just Communities, Ujima Company, AK Healing Arts, Renewable Energy Worcester, UHAB, Queer Ecojustice Project, CoFED, Partners for Dignity & Rights, PISO, Cooperation Humbolt, Sustainable Economies Law Center, Intelligent Mischief, Power Shift Network, Spin It Forward, Black Folks Don’t Swim?, Got Green, Upstream, Womxnist Liberation Coop, Micronesia Climate Change Alliance, Beneficial State Foundation, Organization Boricua de Agricultura Ecologica, Uprose, Cooperation Jackson, Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance, NC Climate Justice Collective, Decolonize Our Museums, Delicious Democracy, Food for the Spirit, We Rise, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Minnow, Understory, A Bookkeeping Cooperative, Understory, Oregon New Economy Project, RoundSky Solutions, CEANYC, Resource Generation, The Cranky Queer, Co+here Design Lab, Justive Funders, Florida Rising, Santa Cruz Community Ventures, GNN, Real Food Real Stories, Groundwork Northeast Revitalization Group, Nuns & Nones, Center for Economy Democracy, Lift Economy, OneLife Institute, CERO, Revolution, Sol Root Farmers Collective, Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice, Parable of the Sower Intentional, Community Cooperative, Floodgate Farm, Sunrise Worcester, Coliberate, Fort Collins Community Action Network, BoomShake Music, SongHomes for the Orisha, Rooms for Peace, Broome Tioga Green Party, Yolo Climate, Emergency Coalition, The Village in Oakland, Aurora Commons, Neighborhood Grow Plan, Tasting Awareness, Climate Refugee Stories, Collective Determination, Share Circles – Maui, and Peoples Hub.
Main results and impact:
Ultimate impact is yet to be seen, but an artist showcase was held in November 2021 featuring the selected artists and cultural workers: creativewildfire.org/showcase/
