Create!

Along with direct action and other forms of resistance, a transformational movement must also have a constructive program that builds new institutions based on the values that the movement aspires to achieve. These may eventually replace the old systems. From small, worker-owned cooperatives to national advocacy groups, hundreds of thousands of people around the country are working to create democratic and sustainable systems that meet the basic needs of all people.

Providing Family Benefits In Washington State

March 24, 2025 Matt Bruenig and Kamau Chege, People's Policy Project. Create! Child Care, Family benefits, Food Access, Washington State

When Democrats had control of the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2021 and 2022, there was some hope that they would pass a comprehensive scheme of benefits for families with children. But the failure to pass the Build Back Better legislation and failure to extend the Child Tax Credit provisions of the American Rescue Plan dashed those hopes. With Republicans now in control of the House, Senate, and Presidency, any federal expansion of family benefits is effectively off the table for the next four years. States, especially those controlled by Democrats, have the ability to fill the void left by the federal government and enact their own suite of family benefits.

Sociocracy: A ‘Light In Our Path Towards A Co-operative Society’

March 23, 2025 Alice Toomer-McAlpine, The News.Coop. Create! Collective Wisdom, Cooperatives, New Economy, Sociocracy

When it comes to collective leadership, simply having the willingness to work in this way is not always enough, and trying to ensure everyone is heard without systems and structures to support this aim can become messy and unworkable. A growing number of co-ops are exploring how the governance system of sociocracy can help them to ensure those involved have a say while still getting things done. Sociocratic organisations are made up of small, semi-autonomous working groups called circles, connected by members who ensure the flow of information between them. Roles within circles are selected via an open, transparent selection process rather than a secret ballot.

Fuel Poverty Action, Corbyn, Others Launch Retrofit For The Future

March 19, 2025 Hannah Sharland, The Canary. Create! climate crisis, Energy Efficiency, Housing, Housing Crisis

A coalition of groups is launching a new campaign that joins together the dots on the climate, housing, and fuel poverty crises. Retrofit For the Future plans to put renters’ rights and a green and just transition for workers at the heart of the retrofit debate. Retrofit For The Future Fuel Poverty Action, ACORN, Greener Jobs Alliance, Medact, and the Peace & Justice Project will be officially launching the new initiative on Wednesday 19 March. You can join them online for this at 7.30pm if you sign up here. The campaign will call on the government to direct its attention to retrofit-upgrading and improving existing homes. It will set out the compelling case that doing so is a key to tackling both the climate emergency and the housing crisis.

Participatory Budgeting Includes Community Members In Public Funding

March 18, 2025 Damon Orion, Resilience. Create! Brazil, Democracy, History, Participatory budgeting, Worker Rights and Jobs

In 1989, one-third of the inhabitants of Porto Alegre, Brazil, lived in impoverished regions on the fringes of the city, cut off from sanitation, clean water, medical facilities, and other essential resources. In response, the Brazilian Workers’ Party created participatory budgeting (PB), a citizen engagement process that enables community members to decide how to use a portion of public funds. A 2007 report by the North American Congress on Latin America stated that this brought treated water to 99 percent of Porto Alegre’s population, expanded the sewer system’s reach from 46 percent in 1989 to 86 percent of the city, led to the construction of more than 50 schools from around 1997 to 2007, decreased truancy from 9 to less than 1 percent, and helped double the number of students attending university from 1989 to 1995.

Arizmendi: A Co-Op Of Co-Ops

March 15, 2025 Transition Bus, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Democracy, New Economy, Solidarity, Worker Rights

I like everything all together. I like the fact that it's a cooperative. I like working with my hands and I like physical labor. Everybody's paid the same wage no matter how long you've been working at the Cheeseboard. Even though I'm one of the newest people there - I've only been there two years - I still have all of the rights, responsibilities and privileges as somebody who's been there for 30 or 40 years. Everybody is valued equally and we operate by consensus, but we all make decisions collectively. We're always trying to work together to make the decision work for everybody. So we reach unanimity on almost every decision.

How Appalachian Towns Are Learning To Help Each Other After Floods

March 15, 2025 Katie Myers, Next City. Create! Appalachia, climate crisis, Disaster Recovery, Flooding, Kentucky

When the rivers and creeks running through eastern Kentucky jumped their banks and flooded a wide swath of the region for the second time in as many years, Cara Ellis set to work. One week later, she’s hardly let up. Ellis has spent countless hours helping friends in her hometown of Pikeville evacuate and delivering supplies to people who have lost their homes. “I’ve been here, there, everywhere in the county,” she said. “It’s overwhelming. There’s been a lot of devastation.” Ellis spoke during a brief moment of rest in the chaos. Her home was spared when storms brought torrential rain to central Appalachia during the weekend of February 15.

Cuba Sends Doctors, The United States Sends Sanctions

March 10, 2025 Helen Yaffe, Orinoco Tribune. Create! Cuba, History, International Solidarity, Marco Rubio, Socialism, US Blockade, US Imperialism, US Sanctions

On February 25, US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced restrictions on visas for both government officials in Cuba and any others worldwide who are “complicit” with the island nation’s overseas medical-assistance programs. A US State Department statement clarified that the sanction extends to “current and former” officials and the “immediate family of such persons.” This action, the seventh measure targeting Cuba in one month, has international consequences; for decades tens of thousands of Cuban medical professionals have been posted in around sixty countries, far more than the World Health Organization’s (WHO) workforce, mostly working in under- or unserved populations in the Global South.

Indigenous Food Reciprocity As A Model For Mutual Aid

March 10, 2025 Kate Nelson, Civil Eats. Create! Food and Agriculture, Indigenous foods, Indigenous Peoples, Mutual Aid

In the Arctic and Far North, where a successful hunt can mean the difference between feeding the village or scrounging to make ends meet, one might assume a scarcity mindset would take hold. Instead, reciprocity prevails. Examples of this sharing-focused approach abound. A recent documentary, One With the Whale, follows the hunting practices of an island community in the Bering Sea. In one scene, after a long period without finding game, a hunting crew harpoons a seal, which will allow them to feed some of the community. “It’s always a blessing to receive any animal that you catch,” Siberian Yupik hunter Daniel Apassingok tells the filmmakers. “As small as the game is, the game is dispersed with four or five other boats."

Transit Stations Aren’t Designed For Women And Caregivers

March 9, 2025 Maylin Tu, Next City. Create! Caregivers, Trains, Transportation, Women

A new report takes mobility hubs (traditionally, transit stations) and asks: How can planners design these spaces around the needs of women and caregivers? Imagine a centralized place in your neighborhood where you can chat with your friends over coffee, buy a few carrots for dinner, fill a prescription or watch your kids play on a playground – all while accessing the train, bus, bikeshare or rideshare. “Part of the feedback that we’ve gotten from practitioners is that it seems a bit utopian,” says Natalia Perez-Bobadilla, Research Communications Specialist at the Shared-Use Mobility Center (SUMC) and one of the authors.

Venezuela: Communal Banks To Reactivate Communal Economy

March 7, 2025 Radio Red VE, Orinoco Tribune. Create! Banking and Finance, Communes, Local Economy, Venezuela

The minister for communes and social movements, Ángel Prado, has said that in light of the relaunching of illegal economic sanctions by the US empire, Venezuela is counting on the reactivation of the popular and communal economy through use of the Communal Banks. “In the face of this new aggression from [forces of] imperialism,” he stated during the Assembly of Communes of the People’s Power this Wednesday, March 5, “in our Communal Banks we have funds that come from the surplus of the different social production companies that the El Maizal Commune has; previously, we invested those resources in infrastructure.”

Entrepreneur’s Eviction Leads To Community Model For The World

March 5, 2025 Ilana Preuss, Next City. Create! Atlanta, Displacement, entrepreneurship, Gentrification, Manufacturing, Mutual Aid

Kiyomi Rollins can smell the coffee even before she walks through the door at The Ke’nekt Cooperative in Atlanta’s Westview neighborhood. Sunshine fills the space with energy; every seat is full. She smiles at the neighborhood aunties sitting next to the entrepreneurs from Atlanta University Center and the community resident teaching a small group about social media content creation for neighborhood startups. She watches as a middle-schooler from down the street fundraises for his school trip and each person around the table helps out however they can.

Out Of The Dark And Into The Light: The ROSCA Movement In Canada

March 3, 2025 PK Mutch, Rabble. Create! Banking, Canada, Community Banks, Finance, ROSCA

Most Canadians have never heard of a Susu, Pardner, Hagbad, Chit Fund, or Tontine, collectively known by their academic name, ROSCA. But that’s about to change. Especially if Dr. Caroline Shenaz Hossein has a say—and the freedom to say it. For over ten years now, Dr. Hossein, award winning University of Toronto scholar, author, international speaker, and daughter of Caribbean immigrant parents, has been an unstoppable researcher and fiery advocate for the acceptance of ROSCAs as part of our financial system. Dr Hossein, also a founding member of the Banker Ladies Council, has been holding the torch through her research for over a decade

Community Bank’s Innovative Strategy For Affordable Homes

March 3, 2025 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. Create! Affordable Housing, Banks, Community Banks, Development, Home Ownership

When the pandemic hit, Mayra Ibarra moved back into her mother’s house to get some help with rent and childcare. There, she had to share a bedroom with her youngest son. Ibarra’s mother didn’t have internet access, but they quickly installed it so her son could attend kindergarten remotely. She bought him an old classroom chair, the kind with the desk attached to it, to keep in their bedroom. The setup worked for a few years, “but it felt like this is not my home, this is my mother’s home,” Ibarra says. “I wanted my home, my own space. Same for my kid.”

Socialism Leads Humanity Out Of Artificial Scarcity

March 2, 2025 J. Hagler, Workers World. Create! China, Solar Energy, Space, Technology

“The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity,” said fictional Captain Picard of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Humanity is standing on the cusp. Climate change is presenting the U.S. with the same choice nature has gifted all its species: evolve or die; change is the only constant. As the cost of basic goods and, more importantly, energy continues to rise across the capitalist economies of Japan, Western Europe and North America, others have decided to utilize their economy to actually innovate. Instead of phallic vanity projects of the impotent super-wealthy, presented by SpaceX and Blue Origin, the “Chinese Academy of Space Technology” (CAST) has shown humanity a different way forward into the stars.

Welcome To ‘Think Like A Commoner’

March 1, 2025 David Bollier. Create! Book Review, Local Economy, The Commons, Transformation

About a year ago, some folks in Bangkok reached out to me. Hans van Willenswaard and his wife Wallapa wanted to translate my book Think Like a Commoner into Thai and publish it. Hans is the founder of the Innovation Network International in Thailand, and his wife Wallapa is a social entrepreneur and founder of the Mindful Markets movement. Both have been quite involved in the commons for some time. I was thrilled by their request, but upon re-reading the original version of my book, published in 2014, I was dismayed to realize that parts of it felt outdated.

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