Ondalan: Members to the kitchen
- In the kitchen they have in Burlada prepare twelve dishes each week and leave it at five points of collection. Ondalan's partners have the key to these places and can go through the food containers at their choice. Members are from home: no fees or stays have to be paid. The first condition for becoming a partner is to meet face-to-face with the workers of this micro-operation: to name and face, to know how to work and to decide in the assemblies what they will do for the future.
Micro-operations were set up in Ondalan in October 2020, even though the project was already under way earlier. They call themselves agents who work for sovereignty. What is being done in practice at this source is to offer prepared food. “For the future, the way is going to be seen, it is the partners who decide, in the assemblies” the workers explained to us. An example of this is that, after the end of the interview, the members decided at the last meeting that the garden should be worked out: “In the town of Unx the greatest concern is depopulation and we have created the garden, in which it is intended to create two jobs so that the young people of the people can work and live there with a living wage.” The vegetable garden that is now being worked on will bear fruit for the future and meanwhile work with the Ekoalde association of Navarra, which provides them with the seasonal organic products of small local producers.
Ondalan has a kitchen in Burlada and have five points to pick up the 12 dishes they prepare each week: Burlada, Zizur, Tafalla, Unx and Ujué. There are already 70 members who enjoy these meals at home and for the workers of Ondalan the partners are from home. Do you want to know how to open the door to new partners?
Partners at home
Ondalan neighbours have explained how citizenship relates to them: “There are many ways to know us: through social networks, the internet, the media…”. Whoever wants to be part of Ondalan goes online, “but in order for the partner to enter into force we have to meet directly with us: we are very important to know ourselves, to explain the project well, to see the place…”.
They are betting on digital tools and the use of technology, but keeping the “humanity”. Relations between the partners work slowly, thus enriching the project: “We attach great importance to working on personal relationships and creating synergies between us, not only between cooperative workers, but also between partners. For example, we have electricity with Goiener and mobile phones with Izarkom and we also make those projects known to our partners.
Everything is done through personal treatment and trust.” As a sign of confidence, all partners receive the key to the points and the kitchen.
Each partner is individually recognized. How is Ondalan’s partner? “It’s curious, before its opening we expected the cooperative to be for young people without time, but we have as many different realities as partners. There are young people, there are families, there are old people, there are people alone... Each one has its characteristics and needs.”
Eating unites us
Members make the request before 10:00 each Thursday, so that Ondalan will prepare the 12 jars they will buy and not consume them. Each week these 12 dishes are changed and each house chooses according to its customs and tastes, as well as according to its skills: “He who prepares legumes well can order vegetables and cereals, others the other way around...” Payment is made online, by card, at the time the request is made. And from the next Thursday each one can receive your order, the day and time that best comes to you, going to the delivery point with your key.
In order to be a partner, there is no need to provide a fee or permanence. But the request made must be a minimum of EUR 24: “There are people who ask for it every week or every two weeks, but whoever does it has to do that minimum.”
Despite the fact that the main means of application is the Internet, people who do not adapt to new technologies adapt differently: some go to the headquarters and do so there, and others do it by telephone: “For this we meet with the partners, to know each other’s needs and adapt to their forms.”
Each station of the year holds an assembly, with a total of four: “All balances and economic accounts are available to partners. In those meetings we present and talk about how the assembly is, whether the partners have new ideas... we talk about the cooperative and among all we decide the line of work for the future.”
FICHE
What it does: Agent advocating sovereignty. Prepared meals.
Created: October 2020.
Residence: Burlada.
Partners: Two working partners, two workers per half-day and 70 partners.
Contact: 722 856 471/722 856 432 ondalankoop@gmail.com / info@ondalankoop.eus
