Collective Members
We aim to be a diverse, inclusive and open-to-all contributors movement. The Collective partners have joined efforts, and contributed by sharing their approach and solutions openly. The resources we are jointly creating and sharing, are free and accessible for community-based change agents and partners to communities, to use it in own their context. Obviously, we recommend to adapt before using it, and we like you to share it back with the Credits for Communities movement.
If you like to join and become a Collective partner, please let us know
What do the Collective members of Credits for Communities stand for?
These are our beliefs:
✓ Credits for Communities is a working towards a foundational mind-set shift:
- “we want community X to see themselves as powerful agents of change”
- “we want others (buyers and business and the general public) to see community X as dignified and respected producers of ABC (ABC being: their food, raw materials, handmade products, labor of any kind)
- “we want other (buyers and business and the general public) to see community X as protectors of our natural environment, be it forest, (fishing) waters, animals, clean air and so on“
✓ Credits for Communities believes that, in order to break the cycle of poverty, we need to incubate agency of groups of enterprising people in impoverished communities around the world. Through income-generation and access to financial services that are connected to the fulfilment of basic needs, the communities themselves can grow the well-being of the larger community.
✓ Credits for Communities works to achieve these goals by storytelling to shift social norms and attitudes towards impoverished communities; and by igniting and incubating agency (of change agents based) in communities and by supporting these communities with access to capital, channel to market, capacity and competency building.
✓ Credits for Communities puts the wellbeing of the whole community centre stage. With the focus on the communal aspects, as such, it distinguishes itself from individual perspectives and focus. It does not want to go explicitly against individual approaches, however it is geared towards strengthening the communal wellbeing.
✓ Credits for Communities promotes the involvement of communities in the betterment of their wellbeing. This requires the transformation of our financial and economic system to adapt to and adopt or be inclusive of communal practices where caregiving and mutual cooperation are valued.
✓ Change or transformation, whether within an individual or a community, originates from within. Therefore, it is crucial for communities to decide and establish their priorities.