About us
Our Core Frameworks
Solidarity Economy: A solidarity economy is an economy that works to the benefit of all, ensuring that ordinary people can play an active role in making the decisions that impact their lives. We believe everyone should have access to jobs in which they control their labor, housing they can afford, food that will nourish them, a local government that will listen to and invest in them, and a community that recognizes it is stronger together than as a group of individuals. We see solidarity economies realized in the development of cooperative businesses, mutual aid initiatives, participatory budgeting, community support agriculture, community land trusts/co-housing, time banks, community loan funds – and more. Learn more about why we need a solidarity economy.
Asset-Based Community Development: Asset-based community development is a call to change our mindset; rather than thinking in terms of needs, deficits, and lack, we learn to recognize and cherish knowledge, abilities, and assets that already exist within our local communities. As a praxis, ABCD seeks to creatively and collaboratively amplify these assets, and interconnect them so they are more accessible and available to the whole.
Community power/participatory democracy: Too often, local leadership fails to recognize the importance of community creativity and community-based solutions to local problems, turning instead to technocratic, top-down approaches that recreate old inequalities and fail to address root causes. This gap between decision-makers and ordinary people is further exacerbated by increasing political and ecological instability, leading to unforeseen shocks that disproportionately affect the working class and People of Color. In times of crisis, we cannot wait for politicians. We believe that the people who live in communities know what’s best for those communities.
Humanism and care: We believe that the search for a solidarity economy is also a search for meaning. Therefore, we place people at the center of our initiatives, prioritizing relationships, integrity, and well-being and moving “at the speed of trust,”. We also believe that storytelling, sharing, and mutual support are essential to achieving our goals. We seek to find narratives that can unite a wide range of initiatives, from local cooperatives, campaigners, organized labor, to justice-oriented churches, advocacy groups, and community gardens as a collective force for social and economic transformation in our region.
Why Northern Virginia?
Northern Virginia is famous for its wealth. A seemingly endless expanse of lush, affluent suburbs astride the U.S. capitol, it is home to two of the wealthiest counties in the world. Yet these riches are far from shared fairly. Surrounding the gated communities are pockets of poverty and racialized inequality.
At the same time, there is world historic ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity within Northern Virginia, with 1 in 3 residents of Arlington County speaking a language other than English at home. NOVASEN sees this diversity as a form of community wealth and aims to make Northern Virginia a site of democratic transformation.
We’re Building a Network!
We Organize Events: Our next event is a Fall Solidarity Economy Potluck.
Book Club: We meet once a month to discuss groundbreaking ideas for social change.
We maintain a Listserv
We meet once every two weeks on Thursdays at 5:30 pm at Clarendon Presbyterian Church
Resources:
The Alternative Ownership Learning Hub
https://www.transformfinance.org/alternative-ownership-enterprises-learning-hub
Why Coops are Essential for the Fight for Democracy by Esteban Kelly
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/whats-next-why-co-ops-are-essential-in-the-fight-for-democracy/
The Solidarity Economy Series, Emily Kawano, US Solidarity Economy Network
The Solidarity Economy: An Assessment, Pen Loh
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/building-the-solidarity-economy-a-decades-assessment/
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