Suma Qamana at the Slow Living Summit - June 5-9, 2013, Brattleboro, VT

Brattleboro – a represented community

Bolivia, is defined as the poorest country of the Americas based on their total revenue produced (GDP) which has doubled in the last decade but still is less than $5,000 per person per year (CIA Factbook, 2013).  But Bolivians are not impoverished.  Behind the country’s feeble earnings are creative and collaborative ways of living well which include community participation, collaboration, barter, self sufficiency and an average retail mark-up of just 30%, as opposed to the standard 100% used in the US.  So while earnings are low, so are expenses and what thrives are communities, not markets.  The Bolivians call this “Suma Qamana” or living well, and have written it into their constitution making this way of being a national law supported by government ministries, universities and elected officials, all with very little funding.  A recent research trip to the mountainous Bolivian coffee jungles brought me to the small town of Caranavi, which shared remarkable similarities to Brattleboro - in the summer.  Seeing Suma Qamana in practice in Caranavi, opened my imagination to how it could be realized in Brattleboro as well.  The following is a short essay explaining how.

In the Yungas jungles of Bolivia’s Andes Mountains lies the little town of Caranavi.  Like Brattleboro, it is nestled in the hills, beside a river, surrounded by farms and forests and stretching out several square miles.  Like Brattleboro, community members come from many different places.  In this case it’s mostly highlanders looking for new opportunities and something a bit warmer than their climate change-ravaged altiplano farms, while in Brattleboro it seems to be flatlanders seeking out hills and nature.  Like Brattleboro, Caranavi is a busy little hub with the big city four hours away (La Paz, instead of New York).  Like Brattleboro it is sensitive to the nature surrounding it and supports the development of small farms and sustainable, organic agriculture. 

As Brattleboro is known for its artisanal cheeses and farmers’ markets, Caranavi is known for its Fair Trade, organic coffee grown on small, family farms.  Already Bolivia’s coffee capitol, Caranavi is working to become the organic capital of Bolivia too, heartily embracing sustainable farming techniques, crop diversification, and environmental protection.  Residents petition their national government for organic farming training programs and request that their mayor support efforts in developing organic certifications and promoting the region as an organic agro-tourism and healing destination.  Like Brattleboro, Caranavi is an environmental innovator.  For example, they have an active recycling program in a country where it is still considered proper to throw trash out the window or leave it roadside while Brattleboro has curbside composting in a country where it is still considered proper to throw kitchen scraps into a landfill.  Caranavi, like Brattleboro is peppered with many different types of business, schools, restaurants and tourism. Caranavi got this way through its embracement of a system known as Community Economy (economia comunitaria) which grew from Bolivia’s Suma Qamana model of living well (bien vivir), instead of better.

Community Economy is a way of organizing and working together so everyone is represented, and has their needs recognized and met.  For example, when several dirt roads needed to be repaired and expanded, the community asked the mayor for the work to be done.  Bolivia is a monetarily poor country, so there was no budget for the job.  This did not faze the community which collaborated with the mayor to find a creative solution.  In this case, community members donated labor and materials for road construction and shared a community usage fee of about $10 each to raise enough capital to purchase additional supplies and rent heavy machinery.  This provided a win-win for everyone, community members acquired better roads and the mayor helped the community to meet a need. Community Economy is not just about projects, it is about a way of being where people are deeply connected through a democratic process with mandatory participation.  Each community has bi-weekly meetings with a community member hosting the meeting.  This member host then meets monthly with an annually elected community representative and quarterly with the mayor and municipal governing board.  This way needs, resources, ideas and relationships are shared and creative collaboration easily arises.  Reflective of the Andean Cross and indigenous systems of balance, Suma Qamana, is not just about doing but also about being able, knowing and loving.  The community organizing mentioned above reflects this where each community member takes a turn being a host, shares knowledge and has a recognized place in the community.

It is inspiring to see others’ innovative solutions from afar, but imaging it happening here creates a different experience.  If Brattleboro was organized the way Caranavi was, everyone would be a part of a community sector with mandatory meetings, projects, and representation.  As a town of about 12,000 people spread out over 32 square miles, Brattleboro could be divided into its three voting districts with each district represented by a democratically elected annual volunteer representative.  The district representative would meet bi-weekly with district residents, monthly with the other two district representatives and quarterly with the Brattleboro select board. 

Each district would have about 4,000 people in it representing about 1,000 households.  The households would be organized into 40 community sectors with 25 households in each sector.  There would be a two-tiered model of representation involving 40 local representatives, or hosts, and the three district representatives.  The local host position would rotate every six weeks and be shared by each household.  Local hosts would lead mandatory, bi-weekly meetings with their 25 households, most likely meeting in a church, school, business, or community center.  Following the Caranavi model, local families would be obligated to participate in the bi-weekly, hour-long, meetings by sending a family member who was at least 16 years old or be charged a $20 non-participation fine with funds going into a community account that members would determine how to spend on an annual basis. 

After three meetings, the local host position would go to the next family in line who would fill the position for the next three turns (six weeks).  During the community meetings, anything about the community could be discussed, from neighbors’ health and family news, to new ideas such as Transition Towns initiatives, to education, taxes, roads, energy resilience, composting, health, gardens, nutrition, and emergency preparedness. 

The 40 local hosts would also attend a 90-minute, monthly meeting with their district representative.  This meeting would most likely take place at the Brattleboro Union High School.  In Caranavi it took place at the Town Hall.  Hosts would spend 45 minutes sharing news from their communities.  This sounds like a short amount of time for 40 people, but because these communities meet regularly, they are familiar with each others’ news and are mostly receiving updates rather than presenting new information.   For the remaining 45 minutes, the local hosts would look on as the three district representatives reported out district needs, news and events. Organizations and businesses wanting to network with the district communities would be invited to attend these meetings to see where their interests might fit.  

The final tier of participation would take place with two-hour long, quarterly meetings between the three district representatives, and the Select Board.  Like monthly Select Board meetings today, these could be filmed and aired live to residents via the local cable channel and internet.  Larger projects and initiatives could be discussed at these events.  Information and communications would travel both up and down the organization as representatives presented new ideas from the district to the broader region and gathered new ideas to bring back to their district communities.  In Caranavi, the newspapers and local television channel reported on the quarterly meetings.

Caranavi was not always so collaborative.  Ten years ago the communities were isolated and competitive.  By engaging in Suma Qamana and Community Economy the region learned that all gain when the work and risk is shared by many.   Participants such as 22-year-old single mother and district representative, Esther Alonqa, report that now members were not left behind like before and neighbors who rarely saw each other now enjoy regular contact.  In addition, as she experienced, youth were empowered by their participation and being given an important place in the community. “Our youth are given access to leadership roles and a place in which to be respected,” she explained.  Being organized, active and vibrant like this creates more opportunity. New ideas come forth as there is now a regular space in which for them to be heard. “Members do not always to agree on things,” Alonqa stated, “but their ideas and opinions need to be known.”  By having a regular space to communicate together over the long term, these differences become less polarized, other ideas emerge, as issues are slowly worked out through public discussion.

Nobel Laureate Economist Amartya Sen writes of the need for public reasoning in order for justice to take place.  Public reasoning is an open discussion that creates a place for debate and, in time, understanding.  It gives voice to those who are not commonly heard and creates a sphere of equality where ideas can freely flow (Sen, 2009).  Suma Qamana provides the place for this discussion.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to imagine Brattleboro as bringing forth greater justice through the engagement in participatory models such as Community Economy and Suma Qamana?  To learn more about this participate in Stenn’s session Seeing the Solidarity Economy through Suma Qamana at the Slow Living Summit, on Friday, June 9^th at 10:30am in the Marlboro College Tech Center, Room Two East.  Stenn is an author and researcher in sustainable community development and an interdisciplinary adjunct professor at Keene State College.  She is the founder of Fair Trade Towns Brattleboro and Fair Trade Keene State College as well as slow fashion, natural fiber, handmade clothing company, KUSIKUY.

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