Menña Mendi, the favourite of the Hernaniards, has taken the Plazindegi on Friday, accompanied by the sounds of the pair of saxophones. It's proof of how important they're going to be. This initiative has been called Hernani Burujabe and goes beyond being more sovereign in finance, energy or other areas. Given the serious exploitation of nature and the growing social imbalances, Garitano has started to respond locally to the needs of citizens as “people”, according to its promoters.

The Hernani City Hall is part of the project, but according to Mayor Xabier Lertxundi in the presentation, it has a broader base: “This is not just a municipal project, we will be there, of course, with the responsibility that falls to us, but this is a country project.” The merchants of the people, producers and agents of the transformative economy are immersed in the project. In the event, dozens of neighbours and neighbours have been able to hear the testimony of each of them as brushstrokes.

For example, in Hernani they live in about ten villages from the cultivation of the land, and one of them, as Kontxi Zubiondo has pointed out, is a key producer to follow “linked to the landscape and identity” of the locality. The Association of Communal Consumption collaborates with them in the promotion of food sovereignty “individually and collectively”. Lertxundi has stressed the need to make this leap from the individual to the collective when talking about models of governance.

Production of energy and money at the service of people

Behind the thick words that often look blurry, Hernani Burujab brings together concrete projects, and that's one of the project's strengths. In the energy field, a community of renewables, a citizen cooperative, is being created to promote production and shared self-consumption and, among other things, to combat speculation. In total, they have now reached one year and are challenged to make 250 partners, as explained to Argia. They have already carried out the technical projects for the Zubipe football field and the covered pediment of Ereñotzu.

In Hernani, they're also about to launch a coin called Ekhilur. Through a closed financial circuit between the City Hall, shops and citizens, the wealth generated has been created so that it stays in the town. Users of this digital payment system will benefit from a number of discounts and advantages which, by the way, will help to promote the local economy. Money at the service of people.

Local trade is one of the main legs of the Hernani Burujabe project. Large shopping centres and Internet sales are not standing by the changes they have made. For example Hernanin.eus have created an open digital window and have started to offer home delivery service. After all, “filling the streets with people and color” is essential in these times, as Oihane Fernández has stated to Hamaika Telebista.

Co-operative care and accompaniment, public Internet fiber network, responsible management… Each from their area, all in the same direction and with the same objective: At this crossroads, Mikel Valero, a member of the cooperative Hiritik At, who works on the project, has moved away from the “socio-economic model that has brought us to the abyss” and in this crossing “deepening sovereignty, democracy and well-being and de-commercializing the economy”.

Days 22 and 23 October

Friday's was nothing more than a starting point on the long road that leads the motto 'eman pausoa' towards transformation. In two weeks' time, on October 22nd and 23rd, a conference has been organized in the Iturola collaborative space of Hernani to better understand the projects under way so far, to discuss among the citizens and to try to untie the possible nodes.

On October 23, workshops will be held tomorrow, but before that, on October 22, a talk has been organized with Gorka Martija, member of the Observatory of Latin American Multinationals OMAL, and feminist economics expert Amaia Pérez Orozco.