SUSY or Sustainable and Solidarity Economy is a project which brings together and shows examples of the solidarity economy. The SUSY online platform maps social and solidarity enterprises and is live and updated with more than 1,200 cooperatives, social initiatives, co-working spaces, food and agriculture initiatives, self-organized and self-managed efforts and any other type of initiative that arises from the sector of the solidarity economy all over Europe.
Fair Trade Hellas, a SSEDAS-SUSY partner (“Social & Solidarity Economy as Development Approach for Sustainability in the European Year for Development 2015 and beyond”, co-funded by EuropeAid funds) of among 26 CSOs from 23 European countries that are collaborating to promote and enhance the idea of solidarity for the past 3 years, is also part of the SUSY map and showcases the fair-trade movement in Greece.
The SUSY map exhibits through several filters different categories of the solidarity economy that have emerged due to various economic, environmental and social challenges, that not only provide necessary and alternative solutions but also show that different paths are feasible.
Some categories include finance, active citizenship, fair trade, housing, social inclusion and empowerment, recycle – upcycle – re-use. All can be found here: http://www.solidarityeconomy.eu/susy-map/
The SUSY map also includes some new functionalities via the 17 SDGs, where each goal is correlated with each initiative, showing how the social and solidarity economy directly contributes and moves hand in hand with the SDG achievement. According to the Fair Trade Hellas project coordinator: “People involved and interested in solidarity-based initiatives can network and interact, and we can share and open up the idea of the solidarity economy to more and more people. By collecting and sharing these examples, we aim to gain new insights into the solidarity economy. We hope to enable reflection and discussion in order to discover and embark on more and more future opportunities and possibilities for the solidarity economy. At the same time – like other initiatives in the solidarity economy – we are building links with political decision makers to increase their support for an alternative way of doing things”.
Fair Trade Hellas is a non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in June 2004 with the aim of promoting the fair trade movement. Through its employees and volunteers, it promotes and implements non-formal educational activities and awareness campaigns about alternative and fair economies and supports responsible consumerism through global education activities, advocacy and publishing relevant materials. Moreover, it implements several actions aiming at civic engagement of citizens towards a more sustainable and fair world. Last but not least, Fair Trade Hellas distributes fair trade products and handicrafts through the recently developed e-shop.