The following activities are designed to involve participants in
understanding how Community Currency Systems (CCS) work, how they benefit
the community, and how they can be used to generate discussion on the
topic of alternative economics.
This section is divided into three parts. First, we present short
activities which can be used as an ice-breaker, brief introduction
and for audiences with limited literacy. We then move on to longer
and more complex activities.
"One should always bear in mind that nothing
is harder to prepare for, harder to succeed in, and as dangerous
to execute, than declaring yourself a man dedicated to change.
Because he who does, makes enemies of the defenders of the
old order and has only lukewarm support among those who might
benefit from the new order. A lack of enthusiasm partly born
out of fear for the opposition, who have the law on their side,
and partly from the distrust of a people who won't believe
in change unless they've experienced it"
Niccolo Machiavelli,
The Prince, 1513/1976.)
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Activity: Offer and Request Bulletin Board
By: Stephen DeMeulenaere, Indonesia Community Currency Systems
(ICCS)
stephen_dem@ yahoo.com
Description: There is much wealth in our community, much more
than we know unless we build an inventory of the goods, services, and
knowledge of the people in a community.
Purpose: To see what the participants have to offer each other
should a community currency system be started in their community.
Time Required: Best used before a workshop starts, and as a
wrap up discussion with the participants.
Materials Required: Chalkboard or wall with Post-It Notes or
a large sheet of paper and a pen.
Process:
1. Put the following sample category headings on the board:
Something you can teach
Something you can make at home
Something you want to learn
Your hobby or craft activity
The work you do
What you spend money on most
Or, organize categories using the following as a guide:
Agriculture, Business, Building Trades, Crafts, Children, Education,
Health, Food, Languages, Recreation, Transportation, Volunteers, Miscellaneous
2. As the participants come in, ask them to write at least one line
in each category, plus their name.
3. Do any of the other activities in this guide. Following the workshop
or during the break, encourage the participants to look over or add
to the board with listings that are different than those they can see
up on the board.
Activity: Explosion of Interest
By: Anonymous
Description: A quick & easy way to visually show how fast
interest grows.
Time Required: A half hour.
Materials required: A chessboard and about 1000 small coins.
Process:
1. Place one coin on the first square of the board, two on the second,
four on the third, and etc. until all the squares are full.
2. Or, take the rate of interest in your country and demonstrate the
rate of growth accordingly.
Activity: 'The Bucket’
By: Menno Salverda and Jeff Powell, Thailand Community Currency
Systems (TCCS)
Description: ‘The Bucket’ is a simple, participatory activity
that allows participants to understand how and why money flows out
of a community using visual reinforcement.
Purpose: To demonstrate that communities become dependent on
external sources of income if they do not take steps to ensure sufficient
circulation of money within the community.
Time Required: About 15 minutes for the activity and 30 minutes
for discussion.
Materials Required: Two plastic buckets, some pieces of tape,
a stir stick and some water.
Preparation: Puncture one (1) of the buckets with about 12
holes, then cover the holes with the tape. Allow the second bucket
to remain useful. It works well if you fold over a corner of the tape
so that it can be removed easily without having to scrape it off with
your nail! Test out the size of the holes—if they are too small, water
will not be able to flow out; if they are too large, the tape will
not hold. Fill the second bucket with water. The activity is best conducted
outdoors where water can be splashed about. If it is necessary to do
the activity indoors, the empty bucket should first be placed in a
large basin or washtub.
Process:
1. The facilitator begins with two buckets—one empty and one full.
The empty bucket, which represents the local economy, is placed on
the ground and participants stand around it. Everyone should have a
clear view of the bucket. Ask participants how they earn money in their
community. As responses are given, ask that person to pour some water
from the full bucket into the empty bucket in the middle. A lot of
water denotes a primary income-generating activity; a little water
symbolizes a secondary enterprise. If an activity is suggested which
involves trading within the community, no additional water should be
poured into the bucket—this represents a transfer of money from one
community member to the next.
2 Once the community economy bucket is nearing full or participants
are out of income generating activities, explain to participants that
the goal of community currencies (or any CED activity, for that matter)
is to encourage the money to circulate many times within the community.
Stir the bucket with your hand or a stick. (Note: you have just explained
the ‘multiplier effect’!) Rather than enriching one person and then
leaving town, money that circulates many times within the community
enriches all.
3. Unfortunately, in our community we also have expenses. Once again
ask participants to list their expenses. For each example, it must
be decided whether the expense represents money flowing out of the
community. If, for example, Mayuree buys vegetables from neighbour
Pornpimon, then no money leaves the community. Stir the bucket. If,
however, Mayuree buys a new 24-inch colour Sony, ask Mayuree to come
forward and peel one of the pieces of tape off of the bucket. Water
should rush out.
4. Once all of the holes have been uncovered, or participants have
exhausted their list of expenses, ask participants how they can do
a better job of ‘keeping their bucket full’. One suggestion will be
to pour in more water (income generation). Ask participants how effective
this will be if the number of holes and size of holes are continually
getting bigger. The other suggestion, of course, will be to plug some
of the holes. This can be accomplished in two ways; one, we can reduce
our expenses, or, we can purchase local goods and services as substitutes
for imported ones. This is an ideal lead-in to, for example, the second
round of the community currency simulation.
Activity: Cooperation vs. Competition (Prisoner's Dilemma)
By: Stephen DeMeulenaere, Indonesia Community Currency Systems
stephen_dem@ yahoo.com
Description: A two-group activity in which teams decide which
is best for them, to cooperate with others or to compete with them.
Competition requires charging interest, cooperation requires not charging
interest. The goals are either to get rich at the expense of others,
or to have enough for everyone in the community.
Purpose: To demonstrate that cooperation can evolve in the
long run even though in the short run it seems better to act selfishly.
Time Required: Game can be played within one hour, with discussion
to follow.
Materials Required: The following chart can be put on a flipchart
or chalkboard.
Team 1 Choice |
Team 2 Choice |
Payoff Team 1 |
Payoff Team 2 |
1. |
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2. |
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3. |
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This chart can be expanded for as many rounds as the facilitator wants
to play, the reasons for this are that teams will likely choose competition
in the early rounds, and then realize that cooperation is the better
option.
Process:
Strategies & Payoffs, Verbal Form
1. The facilitator describes the following to everyone, then separates
them into two groups:
"You are the resident of a small community that is still suffering
from a long monetary crisis. Everyone is in debt, and needs money badly.
You can all pool your money together and lend it to each other interest-free
so that you can all eventually pay off your debts. Or, you can lend
your money out to your neighbours at interest, knowing that you will
get rich quickly as your neighbours get poorer. Your Neighbour also
has to choose what to do to pay off their debts."
You have two choices, to charge interest or not. When matched with
your neighbour's choices, there are up to four results:
1. If you choose to lend money at interest, and your neighbour does
too, you will both get rich very quickly, but only for a very short
term, and then poorer because you both become indebted to each other
while the community economy collapses around you.
2. If you choose to lend at no interest, and your neighbour does too,
you will both have the opportunity to pay off your debts and you will
all have enough to survive and the community will prosper for the long
term.
3. If you lend money at interest, and your neighbour does not, you
will get richer and your neighbour will get poorer. You will get rich
in the short term, but will be poorer in the long term as the community
economy collapses.
4. If you lend money interest-free, and your neighbour does not, you
will have a smaller income in the short term, and no income in the
long term when the community collapses, but your neighbour will get
rich in the short term until the community economy collapses.
Next,
5. The group is separated into two, and moved into separate rooms.
The facilitator then asks each group for its choice, which may take
some time for discussion.
6. When each group has made its choice, it is recorded on the flipchart,
and reported to both groups.
7. The following format is used for recording choices on the flipchart:
Strategies and Payoffs, Table Form
Group 1 (Row)
Group 2 (Column) |
Lend Money At Interest
(result: right side of column) |
Pool Money Interest-Free
(result: right side of column) |
Lend Money at Interest |
Rich Quickly / Rich Quickly
But only temporarily. |
Rich Quickly / Enough Money
But only temporarily. |
Pool Money Interest-Free |
Enough Money / Rich Quickly
But only temporarily. |
Sustainable Income
For the long term. |
5. The game is played until both groups realize that cooperation is
the better choice, at which point the facilitator stops the game and
brings both groups together for the discussion.
Questions:
1. What is the best position for you to be in? (one who lends at interest
when the other lends interest-free).
2. What is the best overall position? (both agree to lend interest-free).
3. What went through your mind when you chose between X and Y?
4. What did you think was going through the other player's mind?
5. If you could have communicated with the other person, what would
you have said?
6. What is the way out of this dilemma? (Neighbours agree to pool
their money together and exclude you and anyone who wants to charge
interest.)
Activity: Community Currency Theatre
By: Peter Moers, ACTES, El Salvador
moers@ strohalm.nl
Purpose: To explore, using theatrical role play, different
solutions to the problem of the scarcity of money.
Materials: Paper hats for three people.
Process:
1. Three volunteers are asked to come to the front. Tell them they
are the only persons that live in a village and they find themselves
in the local market. None of the three brought money to the market,
but everybody brought something to sell.
2. Every person receives a paper hat (you know, the once that you
fold with a big piece of paper). The first person receives a hat on
which is written: "I have cow". The second person receives a hat which
says "I have chicken". The third person receives a hat that says "I
have corn".
The first person holds a paper in his hands which says "I need corn" (big
letters, clearly visible to the public). The second person holds a
paper in his hands which says "I need cow". The third person holds
a paper in his hands which says "I need chicken".
3. To make the game more realistic, choose products which are common
in the region, have more or less the same value and - if possible -
make sure the products are physically present (especially important
in case of an illiterate public).
Ask the public what the three can do in order to satisfy their needs.
Basically there are three possibilities:
1. Direct barter: make the three volunteers exchange their papers
so that they all end up with what they want. This is possible but a
very inefficient and inflexible way to trade because the traders have
to coincide in:
- place
- value of the goods
- time of transaction.
A fourth possibility is to record the initial transaction (in case
the 3-way transaction cannot be made right away) and try to clear it
later.
It is therefore not probable that many transactions will occur
this way.
2. One of the volunteers receives a loan in $: give one of the participants
a paper note of 10 pesos (or whatever national currency) and tell him
you want 11 pesos back later.
Volunteer #1 uses the note to buy his chicken from #2; #2 buys fish
from #3; and #3 buys corn from #1.
Obviously, the problem appears on how #1 will obtain the additional
1 peso. The disadvantages of this alternative are:
- the effect is temporary, because when the loan has been paid back,
the situation (monetary scarcity) remains unchanged. Rather the amount
of money in the community has reduced, because #1 has to pay interest.
- #1 can use his loan to take the bus to Jakarta, buy a beer and
return empty-handed (you can make hilarious scenes out of this option,
depending on how much time you have).
3. Emit a loan in community currency to one (or all three) of the
volunteers. This alternative has a permanent effect, because: - the
loan does not have to be returned (unless the person leaves the community),
and the community money cannot flow out of the community
Activity: Service Charge vs. Interest
By: John Turmel
Purpose: The economic system which uses interest decides who
wins and who loses, not the person who plays. In the service charge
economy, everyone wins.
Materials:
1. Three types tokens to represent food, shelter and energy, one for
each player.
2. Fair chance mechanism like a coin or dice.
3. Tokens to represent currency (11 for round 1, 11 for round 2, for
each player).
4. One token for each player to represent collateral.
5. A bowl to represent the bank.
Process:
Round One: The Debt Economy
1. Each player pledges their collateral for an 10 token loan. They
each had to repay 11 tokens at the end of the game.
2. Each player pays 10 currency tokens to receive their product token.
3. Use fair chance to determine who will successfully market their
product. Take two players with identical product tokens and flip a
coin to see who wins. The winner returns their token to the bowl, and
receives 11 currency tokens.
4. Take the group of losers and flip between them to see who wins,
until the currency runs out.
5. When the currency runs out, seize the player's collateral and production
token.
6. Explain to the winners how their currency tokens had now inflated
(lost value) because now there were less tokens in the economy.
Round Two: The No-Interest Economy
1. In this round, all guests borrow 11 and must repay 11 (No interest).
The 11 currency token goes to pay the community bank's service charge.
2. All players pledge their collateral for an 11 token loan.
3. All players spend 10 tokens to purchase their production token
from the market bowl and spend their last one into the market to pay
for the services of those who facilitated the transactions.
4. Use the coin to determine the winners and losers.
5. As it turns out, there are no losers. Nobody lost their collateral
and the bank got paid.
6. Explain to all players that there were enough products and collateral
for the currency to retain its original value, unlike in Round one.
Everybody sold all their product tokens (100% employment).
Conclusion:
In Round One (the Debt Economy), the bank demands payment of money
it did not create, whereas in round two we created what we needed to
make the economy work. With exactly enough markets to match the volume
and prices of goods produced, there can be no such thing as bankruptcy.
Activity: Quota
By: Cooperative Games Handbook
Purpose: We get what we need from each other if we ask.
Materials Required: Deck of cards.
Number of Players: 3 players per group, up to 4 groups.
Time Limit: 15 minutes maximum.
Process:
1. The facilitator is the leader, dealing 3 cards to each player.
2. Each group checks their cards and decides between them which pattern
to try and get.
3. The players then go to other groups and seek trade with them for
the cards they need. Each group must collect one sample from following
patterns:
-8 face cards.
-8 of one color
-8 of one suit
-8 in a numerical row
-8 all even numbers, any suit
-8 all odd numbers, any suit
3. When the group gets a pattern, they receive 8 more cards to try
and complete another series with.
Activity: Start an Exchange Club
By: Heloisa Primavera, Argentina Red Global de Trueque
Purpose: To introduce the concept and mechanism of the RGT.
Materials: Photocopied tokens.
Process:
1. First meeting: there must be a minimum of 20 persons.
2. Using the bulletin board or going around in a circle, each person
says 3 things they would offer if they joined, and one thing they need.
3. Using virtual (photocopied creditos), they go to the person who
offers what they want and make a sample negotiation in creditos.
4. Discussion of the program. People are asked to bring goods to trade,
or be prepared to negotiate services at the next meeting.
5. At the second meeting, the group is organized. They choose the
coordinator, secretary, treasurer, timekeeper, moderator, quality control
group (3-4), Price Control Group. Choose receptionist who receives
and assists new members, 2-3 for each role to rotate during the market.
6. This groups receives 50 credits each to begin trading. All subsequent
members must wait 3 months before they receive theirs. They agree on
the next date of the market.
7. The trading begins. During the first market, the coordinators put
up the tables, and ensure that particular types of products are concentrated
in groups
8. There is some analysis of activity that occurs in the market, by
using notes that have blocks on the back that are filled in after each
sale.
Activity: The Local Economy Web
By: Bryce Gilroy-Scott, Centro Bartolomé de las Cases, El Salvador
As the participants arrive for the workshop they are asked to individually
think of at least one good or service that they can offer and at least
one good or service that they need. Participants should be encouraged
to list more in either or both categories.
This information is written out on a large piece of paper, or like
material, visible to all participants.
This first step is a basic diagnostic of the local community economy,
based on the needs and desires of the community participants.
If people cannot write this information down themselves, the workshop/exercise
facilitators should expect to assist this process. In non-literate
communities, it remains an important part of the workshop process to
visually post this information, both for the facilitator and for the
participants, as a concretization of the community responses and a
visual reinforcement for the next step in the process.
The workshop participants stand in a circle. Either a participant
or a facilitator will start (they will be holding a ball of yarn or
equivalent material).
They introduce themselves to the circle (name, where they are from,
etc.). They then state one of the goods or services they can offer.
They then state one of the goods or services they need.
Anyone/everyone who can provide that good or service raises their
hand or somwhow signals. The first speaker who is holding the ball
of yarn, will throw the yarn to whoever raised their hand or choose
among those who did.
The recipient of the ball of yarn then introduces themselves. They
re-state the good or service they can provide and they can list new
ones. They then state what good or service they need or would like
to have. After a person(s) responds, they choose someone to throw the
ball of yarn to.
The exercies continues until everyone in the circle has been brought
into the 'community web'.
If there is a 'block' where there is no one who can provide a needed
good or service, it is the facilitator's job to use the community diagnostic
posted on the wall to find a solution or to come up with a compromise
that will allow the exercise to continue (ie: trying a different need
or a good or service that partially fulfills the one desired).
As the exercise progresses, the community participants will be woven
together by the the growing web of yarn. This web is based on their
mutual needs and offers of goods and services that are presently available
in their community.
The significance of this web and its' relation to a CCS system, will
be the subject of the ensuing discussion which should focus on one
or several aspects of a CCS system.
Bryce Gilroy-Scott
San Salvador, El Salvador
February 2004
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