What if working together for the good of all was the most common business model?
Awareness Film Night and Transition Sooke will present the film – A New Economy: Reinventing Business As Usual at the Edward Milne Community School theatre on Feb. 7.
The screening is followed by a discussion with University of Victoria business professor Ana Maria Peredo and Steve Unger, a member of a working co-operative.
Vancouver-based filmmaker Trevor Meir started with a question: “Can cooperation save the world?”
The result is this 2017 documentary, a vibrant look at seven mostly Canadian examples of businesses and organizations, including a craft brew co-op, a peer-to-peer open hardware lab and an urban agriculture social enterprise, that have successfully broken away from capitalism’s traditional hierarchical, employer/employee, competitive, growth-focused, ignore environmental impacts norm.
Meir’s team went through more than 600 potential case studies in selecting the seven included in the film.
“The new economy world is dynamic and changing fast,” Meir said.
“My hope is that this film can be a catalyst for everyday people to be inspired that it doesn’t require massive amounts of capital or the support of the most wealthy; that right here today we can band together and form a new, more participatory economy ourselves.”
Peredo is with the School of Environmental Studies and is the former director of UVic’s Centre for Cooperative and Community-based Economy. She will share her thoughts about community based entrepreneurship and sustainable development.
She worked as an anthropologist and journalist in her homeland Peru before coming to Canada.
Unger lives in Sooke and is a member of the worker-owned Viridian Energy Cooperative. He will be able to answer queries about the pros and cons, nuts and bolts, of being in and operating a co-op.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for the pre-film mingle. The film starts at 7 p.m. Admission is by donation.
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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