Portuguese Network for Doughnut Economics begins
The Portuguese Network for Doughnut Economics had its Kick off meeting with loads of energy on March 23rd 2021.
After posting on the DEAL website and sharing on social media, 150 people registered and just short of 70 people participated in a 1,5 hour public event to explore potential for Portuguese citizen-led groups to transform their territories from the bottom up.
A month previously (February 26th) Kate Raworth was invited to speak (remotely) in Portugal for the “Climate Change. New Economic Models” Conference*, at the invitation of the Portuguese Secretary of State for the Environment & Climate Action, Inês Costa. Since this event, people in different projects and communities around the country began to connect and think about how best they can organise to change their communities, towns and cities. Having heard about the wonderful Doughnut Economics projects happening around the world, people in Portugal now decided that they too want to join the adventure.
The event was in Portuguese and facilitated by Vasco Rato, a professor in the ISCTE school of architecture, urban activist Kitti Baracsi, and Duncan Crowley from the Irish DEAL group IDEN and the UrbanA, ECOLISE, Communities for Future and Degrowth Portugal projects. Two temporary online workspaces (MIRO & google drive) and a Telegram list were created, as initial temporary tools and communication spaces to facilitate network weaving and co-creation. From both the registration and input during the event, we got a very full list of active projects and movements currently happening in Portugal, that are shared in the table below (57 and growing). The event was recorded.
After a very brief intro about the structure of the event, breakout rooms were created for groups of 2. This was to encourage active listening and give everyone a chance to take their first steps in building our shared network. We had explored the idea of breaking up into groups of 5 and having a plenary type feedback session, but due to some technical issues, we resorted to plan B and had a full go around. Perhaps this was the most fitting way to kick off the Portuguese doughnut, by going all the way around our own Portuguese circle, where nearly everybody got a minute or so to say who they were, why they were here and what projects (if any) they were involved with. We then did little breakouts of about 5 people for 10 minutes, to talk about what we can do in our communities to implement change. Back in the full group for the last section, Kitti took us through our map and notes from the MIRO board and Vasco discussed next steps, including the proposal to have a follow up meeting sometime near the end of April.
In the days following the event, images and short reports were shared on social media using the #Donut4PT hashtag. There are now 40 people on the Telegram list and people have started to use the 2 online work spaces. From the clustering of Post-it notes, 6 key nodes were identified for the network; Porto, Aveiro, Marinha Grande, Lisbon, Algarve and a Rural group. While city nodes have been identified, we expect fractals nodes within will soon form to explore implementation of the Doughnut at various scales (previous DEAL posts explored doughnut downscaling here and here). Groups already thinking and talking about this, which could possibly result in pilot projects within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (AML), include the municipality of Oeiras, the parish (Junta de Freguesia) of Campolide and even the bairro (neighbourhood) of Parede in the municipality of Cascais. For the rural group, some people are based at the Portuguese Spanish border, along the banks of the river Server, which could lead to very interesting project exploring rivers as connectors and not dividers, within a shared bioregion.
The second #Donut4PT event is scheduled for dia São Jorge, Saint Georges Day, The Day of the Book, on Friday the 23rd of April, 14–15.30h. Liliana Louro, from “Es Giro” will give a short presentation about the Cities for Change project, that the Amsterdam City Council has just launched.
All are welcome to join this Portuguese network, no experience necessary. Changing our communities and cities is everyone’s business.
* Video of the panel with Kate found here (From 2hr, 9 min, 9 seconds, only in Portuguese)
NOTE: This article was first published on the DEAL website, it includes the growing list of over 50 associated networks active in the Portuguese Ecological Economic landscape. Associated tweet here.
