WEAll Voices Community

Thanks for sharing this info. Being quite new here, and recently relocated to Germany from Argentina, your words resonate with me a lot and I’m very curious about your experiences and ideas.
What kind of projects do you have in mind when it comes to amplify their voices?

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Thank you for your thoughtful message and for sharing your journey. It’s inspiring to connect with someone who resonates with the work I do.

I lead the Instituto GUETTO, an organization I founded in 2019, which is dedicated to addressing structural racism and creating pathways for Black and Indigenous communities to thrive, especially through education and workforce development. Among our key projects is the Escola da Ponte Para Pretxs, which has already trained over 50,000 Black and Indigenous students in areas like languages, programming, and socio-emotional skills to improve their career prospects. Another impactful initiative is the Mapa Preto da Educação, a dashboard of racialized educational data that informs public policy and promotes antiracist practices in schools.

A new project I’ve been conceptualizing focuses on what I call solidariedade orgânica—a deep exploration of how Black, Indigenous, and poor communities foster collective support and resilience. It involves listening sessions and participatory research to uncover and amplify their narratives of solidarity, mutual aid, and resistance in the face of systemic challenges. This would not only highlight their lived experiences but also create a repository of actionable insights for policymakers and civil society.

I’d love to hear your perspective and perhaps collaborate on ways to amplify these voices across different contexts. Let’s keep the dialogue going!

Wishing you and your family a joyful and bright Christmas!

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I came across this paper Why degrowth should be disentangled from the wellbeing economy

It does name the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.

I wonder what is your opinion about it, and how do you relate to economic growth, and limitarian policies such as wealth caps, and rationing of the material footprint? Do you think we can keep the current “way of life” as advanced by capitalism, or should we give up the notion that economic growth is linked to prosperity and wellbeing?

I read the available abstract and snippets, so there may be information that I’m missing in the meat of the article, but the argument makes sense to me. WEAll appears to be a “Big tent” of mobilization that isn’t explicitly anti-growth, anti-capitalist, and leans toward anti-political, whereas degrowth is more focused and defined.

Uncoupling makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean that one can’t participate in both, but I think that it does mean one should expect a broader diversity of ideas in WeAll, and less of an adherence to strict priniplces.

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Tagging @francesrayner in this thread too!

Thanks for starting this conversation @nelacadi and everyone following. We have been chatting about this topic/paper just yesterday. It is something we will be responding to briefly for now- but we will be engaging further on going forward. Would love to also discuss at our upcoming Members Call on the 19th February. :green_heart:

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Thanks @thobile !

We had a good chat about this in the team.

We strongly believe that overhauling our economic systems will take a whole ecosystem of complementary movements and changemakers. In our diverse world, there’s no one model, framing or approach that’s going to work in every context.

The Wellbeing Economy Alliance aims to bring together schools of thought such as degrowth, doughnut economics and human rights economics that share a similar vision of an economy with the wellbeing of people and planet at its heart. Our ambassadors and members come from a range of movements and locations because they believe we are stronger together.

We advocate for a post-growth approach because growth-orientated economies do not meet the needs of people and the environment. And we’ve yet to see a convincing analysis of how we can live within the boundaries of the planet while rich countries pursue growth. A wellbeing economy focuses on meeting these needs, nurturing what benefits people and planet while phasing out harmful practices. We acknowledge that some lower-income countries might benefit from further growth, depending on how it’s generated, who benefits, and its purpose.

Extractive capitalism is at the root of so much of what is wrong with our economies. While many in our movement identify as post-capitalist or anti-capitalist, we’re aware that discussing capitalism as the primary problem can trigger varied reactions in our highly polarised societies. In some contexts, leading with an overtly anti-capitalist message may immediately position you as opposition. We default to framing that allows people to step out of their existing ideas and connect to our shared values.

In the face of rising authoritarianism and widespread unmet basic needs, we see value in framing that appeals to a broad base. The wellbeing economy concept offers a positive vision for redesigning economies around what truly matters. Of course, as any concept comes closer to implementation there is a very real risk of co-option which we need to guard against. A key part of this is ensuring there are strong voices in the movement using more radical framings.

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The MERGE session on Monday was really exciting, and I see WEAll are a main partner. It looks like a huge project, but the main thing I took away from the meeting was the effort going in to analysing what people are already doing (movements, policies, metrics, academic analysis) and showing how they overlap and align around unifying goals and ideas.

The MERGE website says it is working with other similar projects, and they all appear to be EU grant funded. This surely has to be the best funded, most current, and most politically relevant collaboration in the world - and everyone engaging with WEAll has a direct line into it.

My point is, MERGE seems to be working hard to map out the whole ecosystem of complementary movements and changemakers. It is my understanding (hope?) that they will then attempt to pull all the information together into a cohesive and consistent structure, and subsequently present recommendations to political leaders that reflects as unifying a message as is possible. Are they the single most authoritative and powerful voice when it comes to how the various movements align?

Degrowth, post-capitalist, ubuntu, sustainable inclusive wellbeing, ‘a good life’ - we all have our favourite framing, but there is a unifying theme (and I don’t actually think it is entirely absent in capitalism). Can MERGE articulate these unifying ‘shared values’ in a way that everyone buys in to? Will MERGE become the collaboration that leads to an unstoppable momentum?

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Hi Thobile. Where can I find information about the Members Call?

Hi Frances and everyone that has so far contributed to the post! IIt is helpful to hear everyone’s contributions. I hope eventually I will be able to put all the pieces together on my mental puzzle, but for now what is non-negotiable for me is the power of alliance building and focusing on shared mission and values (there’s enough division and polarisation in our world…). Anyway, looks like an important discussion to have so on the 19th so I will try to be there and up-to-date with all the messages.

take care everyone :peace_symbol: