Swedish Safety and Security organisation to test local currency with Transition movement
ISSS - Institute of Swedish Safety & Safety
2013-05-20 12:07
Realizing that Sweden’s cashless society is utterly dependent on the electricity supply, safety and security management organization ISSS is launching a pilot case project making currency with scissors, paper and rubber stamps. The pilot case hopes to increase crisis preparedness, but also to get the community developing the assets it already has before other disasters strike, like a drastic economic downturn.
Beginning in June 2013, the project will explore paper-based local currency in the Swedish rural area called Uppsalabygd, about 100km north of Stockholm.
Philip Wyer, chairman of ISSS, the project’s lead partner, explains that the role of his institute is to study the changes occurring in society and relate then to the safety, security and well-being of people. Understanding resilience and ways for society to show resilience in the face of change is a perspective that ISSS shares with the other partners, the Swedish Transition movement and Open World Villages. Most important is to understand the risks society might face and ways to mitigate those potential threats. Philip likens it to preparing for a journey: you cannot be sure of what to take with you until you know if the journey will be along smooth roads, in hot jungle or up freezing mountains. Having understood where you will be going, i.e. what situation society will be in, the analysis, assessment and recommendations follow, utilizing tools including R.A.I.D assessments. This acronym stands for risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies which enable the organization to understand the current perspective on a potential scenario and analyze the effect of future changes.
Says ISSS Philip Wyer: “In our disaster preparedness work we note a lack of resilience in modern currency systems and realize that, should the electricity go down for a longer period, the cashless society that Swedes are building up would be a money-less society as well. Sweden’s monetary system is totally reliant on functioning electricity and Internet platforms”.
The project, partly funded by the Leader Upplandsbygd EU office in the area, will be launching a volunteer currency as an exciting pilot case in community resilience. Philip explains: “This currency is actually close to a gift currency as it just represents people’s volunteer hours that they offer to help their community towards transition to a resillient community. Should disaster strike, everyone’s contribution is important”.
Here is how the currency will work: each volunteer will get coupons representing hours and minutes in difference denominations. They then ask two other volunteers to verify AND underwrite their coupons. These coupons act like an IOU of voluntary time. Volunteers in a local charity would, for example, offer their time to the charity by giving the charity, say, coupons equivalent to 18 hours work. The charity can then use some of these coupons, for example, to trade them to a musician to come and entertain. The musician might trade the coupons for home-grown vegetables, and the vegetable grower might trade them for a second-hand bike. If the second-hand bike seller is the one who gave vouchers to the charity you can see how a local neighbour helps neighbour culture starts to emerge.
Says Philip; “Another thing ISSS notes about Swedish society is the number of people who are feeling excluded. With high unemployment and a society that does not socialize widely we are looking for a way to bring people together via the voluntary community. We hope that this coupon experiment will give young unemployed people incentive to engage with the community, and the community a way to recognize the young people’s contribution.
Says Transition Sweden Core group member Stephen Hinton; “this trial aims to test several things: Firstly, can we use a variant of complimentary currency to teach people about local economy and how money works in general. Secondly, we hope that just bringing people together to try cooperating locally will strengthen the community- and resilience- even further. Finally, we will be asking people to try things out to learn from the experiment, so hopefully we will be able to pass on what we have learnt to other groups and Sweden will be better prepared if, during a long, cold dark winter, disaster strikes and your Internet Bank no longer works!
The pilot case will last six months, the planning phase has already started, and the launch will be in June followed by an evaluation after the summer. More information is available in Swedish on the information site at,http://transitionsweden.ning.com/page/itk and in English and Swedish via ISSS site http://isss.se
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