Answer the question in Basque. The Aiaraldea Factorship can be a “marcianería”, as Gartzen Garaio says, who wants to build alternatives in Euskera for all areas of life in a region where the use of Euskera on the street is 4%. In one way or another, eight years ago they were in the same watchtower when the Aiaraldea Communication Window was created, an association formed by the portals Aiaraldea Gaur and the fortnight of paper Aiaraldea Hemen, and today Aiaraldea.eus the Basque is the ninth consumed in the network, as explained.

The epicenter of the Factoring of Actions will be located in the industrial estate of Llodio. A 750 square meter pavilion is being combated, which has been acquired thanks to the financial contribution of the partners, but despite having its headquarters in Laudio, the project aims to influence the entire region. Also, in the same line as the media, the project is not limited to the administrative region. “When we create the environment we do not limit ourselves to the political region of Ayala – Aiara, Okondo, Artziniega, Llodio and Amurrio. Aiaraldea would be a sociological region,” says Gartzen Garaio. In other words, the peoples of Ayala are joined by Orozko, Orduña, Arakaldo and Arrankudiaga.

Initiation

Aiaraldea Gaur was founded in 2010. The creators wanted to respond to the scarce presence of local media in Euskera, and more than a hundred volunteers aiaraldea.eus broke the portal. In 2013 they jumped onto paper and published the fortnightly Aiaraldea hemen, both under the brand Aiaraldea Komunikazio Leihoa. There were so many projects that attracted the volunteers and the portals that received visits, that some of them became salaried and began to materialize the media. In 2015, they began a strategic reflection for the future, which lasted a year and a half. “Until then we have worked in the field of communication and have made known in Basque a region that lives in Spanish, but we raise the need to create new life opportunities in all areas of life and in function of the transforming values,” explained Garaio. Thus, the Aiaraldea Communication Window began the path of the Aiaraldea Activities Branch.

Following the designation by the Basque Government of the Social Initiative, in March last year they transferred their legal personality to a non-profit cooperative and are now working to integrate into the cooperative the limited company Komunika, in charge of the media. Likewise, Garaaio qualifies the cooperative as “singular”: “half of the decision is made by the workers and the other half by the users. Therefore, to ensure the social objectives of the project, it is not enough for more than half of the cooperative to agree, but for half of the workers and half of the partners to agree.”

On the other hand, the pavilion located in Llodio will be the meeting point of various transformative projects. Companies and projects within the cooperative, like Komunikak, are looking for individual emancipation in the future.

It is known that the main problem of this size is funding. The project is based on partners and grants, but its aim is “sufficiency”. “To achieve and increase sufficiency, as Komunika emerged, we want to drive more projects in the future,” says Izar Mendiguren, director of Komunikika. Currently, public subsidies finance 30% of the Factory.

Value architecture

The Laudio pavilion will be built according to the main values the project wants to develop. According to Garaio, “it will be a space for the development of the educational project, especially for children and parents; a food economate with his kitchen; a cultural scenario, a media project…” All this will be located on the first floor of the pavilion and it will be an open space for all the public. The offices and spaces of the media will be built on the second floor.

The intention of the creators of the project is to “extend to the public” what is done in it, and that will be done by Aiaraldea Komunikazio Leihoa. Thus, it will organize the acts of the Factory through the media and disseminate them through the web or paper. On the other hand, Garaioa announced that in 2019 it is planned to create a local television.

The working groups that will develop these values have been formed. The educational working group, for example, is developing an educational project aimed at promoting the empowerment and participation of children, as well as training workshops aimed at parents. Izar Mendiguren is part of the feminist working group and has pointed out that feminism will "wet the whole project". In the same vein, the Factorship of Actions will be the house of the Basque Country, but also the house of women, but respecting the independent work of the feminist agents of the region. “Today, in the surrounding villages there are women’s associations and feminist groups. They are articulated, but they do not have a meeting point. Surely everyone will have common problems and it can be a space that responds to it,” explains Mendiguren.

The enclosures of the pavilion are still under construction. The walls have been emptied and painted, but much remains to be done. That's why they need a new group of volunteers who want to build everything in auzolan. They have launched a crowfunding campaign, but not of money, but of “time and knowledge”. Mendiguren has pointed out that what we want to do is “in a participatory way, giving everyone what they like to the extent of their possibilities”.

In addition, Faktoria will be a project space, the main, but not the only one. They intend to broaden the action radius of the factory to the whole region and promote decentralization, without considering the social projects already working in the place.

To do so, the members of the cooperative consider it necessary to build a powerful network of relationships. “How can we influence the social transformation of a region holistically? Well, by bringing together projects like Izarkom, Goiener, Olatukoop, and promoting their membership,” said Garaio. Mendiguren says that, instead of being crushed, he is in power: “We seek alliances and build community along the same path and with transformative values.”

Social fair

On February 24th and 25th they organized a Social Fair in Faktoria under the motto We are what we consume, alternatives to live. On the first day, consumption alternatives were presented, local producers working ecologically and transformative social economy projects such as Olatukoop, Talaios Kooperatiba and Izarkom. The following day the bartering market was held.

The people who came to the fair found some indication of what the factory will be, and they got on the stage of reflection for a year and a half. Gartzen Garaio has pointed out that many counties were unaware of the philosophy of the transformative social economy, because Álava does not have “so much experience” in this matter, and that the fair was “an act to start talking about all these things”. “We did a work of values,” says Mendiguren: the boys and girls had a cooking workshop and were related to the baserritars. On Saturday we held the local producers’ fair, the producers opened their space here. Sunday was the barter market.” It was not a common barter market: they became a currency for the exchange of time, skills or knowledge.

On Saturday, however, they used another currency. A currency called Aikoa was created, depending on income capacity, i.e. those with the lowest economic incomes got the most Aiko for a Euro and, on the contrary, a more expensive social currency for those who earn the most. They were distinguished between low, medium and high income levels. “We wanted Aiko’s equivalence not to be linear for everyone. It served to become aware of each other’s privileges, and although someone felt that we assaulted him, people got it right,” Garaioa said. Likewise, Mendiguren points out that the social currency also encouraged individual reflection on works that are not recognized. “There’s another economy and another way to build a different system,” they say. As you have indicated, consideration is being given to moving the social currency project forward.

Looking to the future

The Factoring of Actions aims to complete the economate project this year. Not only to sell agroecological products in the factory itself, but also to distribute local organic food, promote new consumption patterns and offer training. In fact, there are farmers in the region who produce organic products, especially in Orduña. The Lakari project in Zarautz has been one of the projects launched to recreate the economy through a transformative social economy.

Although the Factoring of Activities is innovative in Aiaraldea, in the Basque Country and abroad there are projects that are driving different life models through the social economy and other values, and those of Aiaraldea have taken ideas from here and there. The Invisible City of Barcelona is one of them, a self-managed cooperative that breaks with the working models of capitalism. On the other hand, Garaio wants to seek the diversification of the capacity of the cooperative, and like the Catalan cooperative Més Opcions, which works for responsible consumption, she wants Aiaraldea to become a partner of the cooperatives accompanied by the Activity Factory, so that she can buy Faktoria’s partners in the other economy.

The Factorship of Actions aims to be a journey towards responsibility in a hegemonic, solar system of an integral project of life. “This system is perforated and perforated. We propose an alternative, as people and as a community, that will live and educate us in the face of the social and economic system that destroys us. We want a way to act and we will do everything through the activities, in Basque,” explained Mendiguren. Garaio, for his part, said that in many places it is being shown that these kinds of projects are “possible”: “There is a mass that is creating a different model of life. It doesn’t break completely with the system, but we will do quality projects that at some point can become hegemonic.”