Mutual Aid Society (TePeWu)

Testing the water. (context: Poland)

I am permanently dumbstruck by the wealth of neglected opportunities for cooperative social ventures. There are many needs created by hostile capitalist modernity, that can be fulfilled in a win-win manner: affordable for customers, justly paid for providers.

In TePeWu we are working towards starting some such projects, and I am curious if anyone here is thinking along similar ways. To me, it is a reasonable first step towards building a solarpunk society.

Examples in Polish context:

• Healthcare cooperatives formed by patients, hiring medical practitioners to take care of them and possibly for outside persons as well.
• Short-term hostels and storage facilities for people evicted, to give them a bridge, before they find a permanent place again.
• R&D and manufacturing of functional food mixes, helping people to cope with ADD/ADHD, depression, anxiety etc. etc.

If anyone is interested in a deeper conversation, I am happy to have it.

The first phase of the Looking Up! is the prototyping of the entire platform. Translated into more practical language, this means that we have to deliver specific elements, tangible and intangible, which are to work together as envisaged in the programme.

The purpose of the prototype is to give us a practical demonstration how the platform works, as well as to give us the experience necessary to get the ‘production’ version up and running.

A properly functioning prototype will also make it easier for us to raise funds for stage two – implementation.

Planned duration of work on the prototype: 6-8 months from the programme launch (1 February 2024)

The primary task of the programme is to educate, inform and inspire individuals (and communities, collectives or institutions) dealing theoretically or practically with the subject of the progressive collapse of civilisation and grassroots, community-based forms of confronting it.

Our area of operation is Poland, but everything we do can be easily cloned in any location.

The tool for this is an online platform that allows us to collect, store and share information in various formats.

Within our declared boundaries, we strive to remain impartial, above all avoiding factional fights and proselytising. We face challenges that cannot be accurately predicted, so every rationally justified approach (and some without), carries the potential for success.

Our long-term goal is to make a contribution to preparing the next generation for the world we are leaving them to live in.

Functional structure of the platform - text description in the article.

This is the official announcement of a long-term programme from TePeWu community, beginning 1st February of 2024.

Programme objective

Launching and long-term operations of an information and education platform `Looking Up'' for countering the effects of ecological and civilisational collapse, with a focus on communicating scientific findings and promoting grassroots, community-based models for responding to challenges.

Interested individuals and collectives are invited to participate in a project prototyping the PwG platform and launching selected services (proof-of-concept).

We look forward to hearing from you!

email: pwg@tepewu.pl
matrix: #PwG_open:min.tepewu.pl

The planetary revolution is here - for some time, it appears. Only, as it is not exactly what we expected, it sort of blindsided us.

But we need to see it clearly now and find our way to navigate the transition between old capitalist ecosystem towards the new one, largely uncertain - and largely malleable, which is an opportunity and threat at the same time.

For ourselves: to cultivate freedom, solidarity, help and care for each other in a space safe from harmful interference. To each person according to their needs, from each according to their abilities.

For our surroundings: to help others face the challenges of the collapse of industrial civilisation.

For the world: to mitigate the suffering and death of sentient beings, especially resulting from the planetary all-crisis.

We align with…

• Solarpunk (and also Lunarpunk).
• De/Post-growth, which is Solarpunk’s pragmatic twin.
• Social permaculture, which helps us arrange relations in the social ecosystem on the principles of symbiosis.
• The bottom-up and self-governing organisation of each community.
• Co-existence, communication and co-operation between communities.
• Mutual aid, care and concern.

We oppose…

• Attitudes of programmatic oppression of the weak.
• All (and especially hidden) material and immaterial monopolies in general.
• Capitalism in particular.
• All (and especially hidden) structures of coercion and hierarchy in general.
• The state based on the monopoly of violence in particular.