Sharing City Campaign

The last half year I've spend on the way to Santiago de Compostela without money to learn a little bit about the world before getting active again. On this way an idea for a campaign came up to my mind and that I want to share with you now.

This will not be the official presentation of the project, just a little idea sharing and if you want you're invited to a Dragon Dreaming right in this moment. Everything is still totally open and there will be some kind of meeting or wuppdays in the next months to dream together.

 WHY?

The question in my head has been "How can we easily implement the infrastructures for sharing initiatives in cities around the world?" and also: "How to connect the already existing ones?".

I believe that there is already a movement out there, not of flag throwing revolutionarys, but of simple people that change the world with little projects and an aware way of life. They don't feel themselfes as a movement now, but we can change this.

WHAT?

It is a very simple idea. In the last years the number of Foodsharing-Initiatives, Urban Gardening Projects, Freeshops, Open Bookshelfs, Repair Cafes etc. increased rapidly. These we can connect. Additional to this we can empower the huge amount of people nowadays, that would like to get active, but don't know how, just to start with small realistic projects in their own town.

To make it really short, the essence of this campaign will be the phrase "Make your city a sharing city".

So if a city has a specific number of projects, depending on the number of inhabitants it will get a title. (Sharing City, City of Future/Sustainability or something similar)

There are three different topics that I have in mind. Maybe a city needs to have one of each to get the title.

I.    Sharing   (Free Shops, Open Bookshelfs, Bike Sharing etc.)

II.   Food       (Urban Gardening Projects, Food Sharing, Open Kitchens, Solidary Agricultures etc.)

III.  Social      (Open Spaces/Workshops/Universitys, Repair Cafes, Free Radios etc.)

I think there will be cities, which directly fulfill the requirements to become a sharing city. So we appreciate what existing projects are doing and increase their motivation.

HOW?

The main aspect will be an online campaign. Just a simple video invitation and a website that collects tutorials for initiating the different kind of projects. In times of Social Media this can be spreaded well and easily, if we do wisely. Just put it on the right places and ask the right people to share it.

Another aspect is the research. It will be much easier to build up a big campaign like that on a scientistic background, that proofs "sharing initiatives are improving the social and ecological values of a city". For this I got in contact with sharecity.ie and will add some more information here later, when I have them.

Gamification is another interesting aspect for me. Who are the first Sharing Citys? Two points for an Open Bookshelf, five points for a Foodsharing Initiative? It can be a big global game ;)

Of course there is the side of law. Who can give a title? What is needed for something official? To tell the truth, because I'm still in Spain I didn't do any research in this direction so I have no idea. But I'm pretty optimistic that it won't be a problem. Maybe someone can find out something in this direction.

SOON

The plan is to initiate a meeting and create an official presentation about this campaign, when I'm back in Germany. So let's dream together, wake up the Dragon in our minds and let's wupp soon!

Updating:

The organization shareable.net is doing something very similar to what I had in mind. But they are not so presented in Europe and it's more networking than a kickstarter-campaign. I will get in contact to them, they already have a big database and tutorials. Maybe we can wupp together