They are all demonstrating the collective power of solidarity—showcasing our ability to shield and protect one another, especially in dark times. 

“I worked in the field of crisis management and when I retired it seems it is just one crisis after another”, says Radovan Žepec from Dobro dobrim, (an NGO from Croatia) explaining his involvement in managing help for Ukraine. As soon as they heard news of the war breaking out, Dobro dobrim went to the Ukrainian embassy and offered help. 

When a strong earthquake hit the poor rural region of Banija in Croatia last year, Dobro dobrim  was created as  a small community response initiative. Since the state was slow to help the region (mostly inhabited by an older population) activists sprang into action to fill in the gap where governmental support was lacking.

To date, Dobro dobrim has built 13 houses and 7 stables for animals, evolving into a fully-functional NGO. While continuing their work in Banija, they are also organizing the collection of basic necessities across Croatia and shipping them to the Ukrainian borders for people in need. Schools, faculties, local authorities and other NGOs regularly contact them and collect medicines, sanitary material, warm clothes and more within their area.

“It has been 22 days and almost no day has passed that we didn’t send some vehicle to [either] the Polish, Hungarian or Romanian borders with [aid for] Ukraine. Many things are going to be needed. We are talking about millions of people and this is by far the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since the 2nd World War”, says Žepec.

Vehicles with equipment and necessities are also crossing the Ukrainian border headed in the direction of Odessa or Lviv. They are often driven by people experienced in crisis situations—most are survivors of the 1990s war in Croatia.  

The parallels between the two conflicts have caused some regional survivors (who were children at the time) to revisit their own pain and lived experiences. 

People here know how it is when you have to leave your home and become a refugee. Ukrainians are often surprised how much understanding there is here for them, but people went through this themselves.—Radovan Žepec, of Croatian-based NGO Dobro dobrim

While Dobro dobrim sends humanitarian help on the borders, NGO Dobra volja organizes transport for people from Ukrainian borders to Croatia.

Marijana Matešić, president of the NGO from the Croatian capital of Zagreb, has driven to the Ukrainian border by herself, bringing  people to safety. 

“We cried together while travelling back to Croatia. They need comfort, they need hugs. Who can stay untouched when they see women carrying only plastic bags or children hugging their one toy in search of some security?” asked Matešić. She hosted one family, (a grandmother, her daughter and grandson) in her house after they were picked up by one volunteer who had driven over  2000 kilometres and even entered Ukrainian territory to help them.

Now Dobra volja organizes buses that go to the border and bring bigger groups of women and children to safety. As she was interviewed for this story, Matešić continued organizing transport for another 20 people who were waiting at the border. 

“Finances are a problem, but every saved life is precious”, she says.

While Croatian authorities organized temporary shelters, the citizens are self organizing as well. In the Facebook group SOS Ukrajina, hundreds of people offered their homes or apartments to refugees. 

“We started the group because we wanted to help friends and family living in Ukraine. But the group exploded”, says Nika Bijelić from Zagreb. Bijelić started the group with Nina Mia Čikeš, Kristina Jelčić and Ganna Kamendrovska—who is Ukrainian by origin.

The group now has nearly  30,000 members, with every possible kind of help being either searched for or offered up on the lively forum. Posts range from housing requests, to job searches. You can even find organizers volunteering to send  dog food to Ukraine.

“The situation is changing all the time so this creates problems, but we are very well organized. When people [do] manage to come here they don’t know anything. For example, [they don’t know] that they have to register with the police, where the police station is, how to enroll children to school, etc. We do everything to connect them with people who can help them”, says Bijelić.  Though he says he didn’t originally plan to get so involved in the situation, Bijelić (like many others), felt a personal connection with what Ukrainians are currently going through.

“30 years ago my mother gave birth to me in the shelter of a hospital in Šibenik during the war in Croatia. This is now happening 500 kilometers away as the crow flies from us. I would like to ask all people to engage in any way they can. Every help is welcomed”, Bijelić concluded.

Check out these related articles:

• Disaster collectivism: How communities rise together to respond to crises
• Food Justice Truck serves up fresh, healthy food to asylum seekers
• Commons and crises: Community resilience from feudal Europe to today

The post Solidarity in a time of war: Southeastern European cities are activating for Ukraine appeared first on Shareable.

To go alpine skiing, participants have to buy a ski jacket and trousers, ski goggles, a helmet, poles, skis, boots, gloves and ski socks. Since slopes are usually far away from urban areas, many skiers have to pay for transportation and accommodation. They also have to pay for a ski pass to use slopes and ski lifts.

Then there’s paying for a teacher or ski school. There are similar expenses for snowboarding, cross-country skiing, ski-jumping and biathlon races. These barriers make winter sports inaccessible for many people, but initiatives in Europe are showing that sharing can change this. 

Ski Klub Ogulin started in a small Croatian mountain town when the nearby ski resort burned down. Since local residents didn’t have a place to train or teach children skiing, they made their own makeshift slope. The effort was expected to last for a year or two, but 11 years later they have a functioning ski resort with ski and sledding areas and snow cannons. 

“We didn’t have any big plan, we just started little by little. When we saw how happy children are, we couldn’t stop. It gave us the enthusiasm to continue. Everybody was saying you are not going to last but we are still going,” Darko Vučić, president of the Ski Club, said.

What makes the Ski Club place unique is that the facility is open to everybody and is completely free. Even the tea for warming up after skiing is free. Ski slopes are open in the afternoon and evening during the week and all day on the weekends. This is possible thanks to many volunteers. For each weekend they need 40 volunteers who all work two-hour shifts. 

“We decided from the beginning that everything will be free. In our town children basically have no possibility to do sports during winter and we wanted this for them. People heard about us and started coming from all parts of the country. They can’t believe that everything is free,” Vučić said.

Although enthusiasm is mostly what is running the place, it is expensive to make artificial snow which has become a necessity in the time of climate change.

“People leave donations if they want and from that we literally buy tea for the next day. We get some donations from companies also,” Vučić said

The club is trying to get funding for a new snow cannon, which costs over $10,000.

Even though children and adults in Ogulin don’t have to pay for ski passes, there is still the issue of expensive equipment which children usually outgrow in a year or two. That’s why the club established its own sharing system. Parents exchange children’s clothing and equipment as they grow. The club also accepts equipment donations from people who don’t need it and distributes it to those who do.

In Norway—unlike Croatia—winter sports are traditional activities that people are expected to participate in. Schools usually hold ski days and if children don’t have the proper equipment, they are not able to participate and could feel left out. 

This problem is being addressed by 170 different equipment lending schemes across the country. They are all part of the BUA network, a social franchise system that works like a library. These facilities lend all kinds of sports equipment for free, from snowboards to tents and bicycles, but winter sports equipment is particularly popular.

“It is very important for children to be able to participate on an equal footing with peers and experience mastery and belonging early in life. Immigrant families in particular do not have a culture of buying sports equipment for their children every year as they grow up. This tradition creates social differences and then we have to do something about it,” said Monica Vogt, BUA’s general manager.

Many different organizations operate the lending sites, including municipalities, volunteer organizations, libraries and sports clubs. Equipment libraries are created with various goals, from increasing physical activity and stimulating healthy lifestyles to creating equal opportunities and fighting overconsumption. 

We want to show that it is not necessary to own everything. — Monica Vogt, BUA’s general manager

In some cases, the lending sites also operate as a work training opportunity and provide work experience for young people. The biggest challenge for the network is ensuring the funds to enable good opening hours for the service.

“Borrowing has become very popular and it is demanding to run a lending business with few resources. In some places you are dependent on volunteers and it is difficult to get enough volunteers. Opening hours are therefore a major limitation and there are often long queues of people who want to borrow equipment especially in the winter,” Vogt said.

You have to be a Norwegian resident with a Norwegian mobile number to borrow equipment, which is bought new and kept in good condition. Skis, helmets, snowboards and other items can be borrowed for seven days. 

BUA network operates a common web page with all lending locations, opening hours and equipment availability. Some sites also offer online reservations. 

“We want to show that it is not necessary to own everything. With better opening hours and more equipment to lend…we can bring about major structural changes in people’s consumption habits when it comes to sports equipment. I think we can make a real difference,” Vogt said.

Check out these related articles:

• These 5 lending libraries are redefining the meaning of ownership
• The lending ripple: How libraries of things are changing their cities for the better
• How to share: 300 guides to help your community thrive

The post Sharing communities in Europe bring winter sports to all appeared first on Shareable.

Kristina Mirković is one of the coordinators of the OXI initiative, which uses a mutual aid style of resource-sharing to bring medical devices (pulse oximeters) to people suffering from COVID-19.  

“A friend of ours got really sick from COVID-19,” she explained. “He ended up in hospital when his oxygen levels were already really low, below 70. He barely survived and he is still walking around with an oxygen tank. A member of our group (Boris Stermotić) started researching on the internet to see how people could help themselves. We joined him and in many protocols from official health institutions, both in Croatia and abroad. We found that measuring oxygen levels in blood is very important. This simple procedure could save people from ending up on ventilators.” 

Pulse oximeters are simple devices that measure oxygen saturation. They’re easy to use and operate, and are helpful for at-home monitoring. People can use the oximeters to measure their oxygens levels and go to the hospital on time, before they are so low that their lives are already in danger. The idea behind the OXI Initiative is to distribute oximeters to people in need for free.

Mirković says she doesn’t understand why doctors don’t explain the importance of oximeters to COVID patients and potential patients. “We all have thermometers at home and we all measure our own temperature. Why wouldn’t we use oximeters at home as well when we know that this is crucial to know how sick you really are?” questioned Mirković.

Mirković and the other core members of the initiative first began organizing with Tribe, an Adventure Club based in the Croatian coastal city of Pula. Before starting the OXI Initiative, they organized walks in nature and other similar activities. Their first 20 oximeters were purchased with money from the club’s members. With the help of donations from citizens, they were able to distribute over 100 devices to Pula and the entire region of Istria within two months. Now, their operations are also active in Rijeka and the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. Their plan is to cover the whole country eventually.

The group is active on social media where people can find mobile phone numbers of people to contact and call volunteers who will bring an oximeter device to their address. It usually takes 15 to 20 minutes from the moment a person contacts OXI for them to get a device. 

“My doctor was on vacation when I [began to feel] worse,” said Dora Lipovčan, an actress from Zagreb, who is still recovering from Covid-19 and still uses OXI Initiative’s oximeters. “It was difficult for me to know…the moment to call the ambulance so the oximeter gave me some peace of mind. I knew that my oxygen level [was not] in the danger zone, so I felt much more secure,” she said.

When the oximeter is no longer needed, an OXI volunteer simply picks up the device, disinfects it, checks the batteries and prepares it for the next person in need.

“It is a wonderful feeling when you feel the gratitude of people,” says Maja Cetina, one of the volunteers from Pula. “Sometimes they give us chocolates, call us their angels or you just see it in their eyes. We don’t only give people the devices but also the feeling they are not alone in this. We bring them oximeters but we also check from time to time how they are doing which they don’t get from their doctors.”

Cetina, who works in one employment agency, has never volunteered before but felt the need to participate in this initiative after her personal experience with COVID-19.

“I got sick and my father got infected from me. I wasn’t hit that hard but my father barely survived, ending up in hospital with an oxygen level of 69%. We didn’t use an oximeter but…I realized how important this is,” says Cetina.

Like many places, cases of the Omicron variant surged in Croatia following the Christmas and New Year holidays. The OXI initiative hopes that distributing, informing and educating citizens about oximeters will relieve the pressure on the hospitals and intensive care units and lower the number of deaths. 

“We received a call from my neighbors on December 31st,” explained Mirković. “The husband had 89% oxygen saturation. He ended up in hospital and received oxygen but he did not need the ventilator. If he waited, he would [have] probably needed it. People often don’t recognize that typical symptoms like tiredness, sleepiness could also mean that the oxygen levels in blood are dropping”.

Currently, OXI Initiative’s free oximeters have been used by more than 400 people. Of those helped, 150 of them asked for professional help after measuring saturation, and more than 30 people were saved from death. Mirković says the key to the group’s success and growing impact is solidarity. 

“We showed that [we] can save lives, even when institutions are not efficient enough,” she concluded proudly. 

The group’s positive impacts aren’t only felt by those in need. Volunteers, like Cetina, also gain a sense of community and personal power. 

She says she plans to continue volunteering, even after the pandemic is over. Having once been hesitant about the time-cost related to volunteering, she now feels invigorated by seeing the impact her time contributes to her neighbors’ lives. “It is powerful to feel that you can actually do something, restore somebody’s smile,” she said. “And all it takes are small steps when there are enough people. Each of us spends maybe 15 to 20 minutes a day on this and the results are phenomenal.”

Check out these related articles and resources:

• How women-led mutual aid initiatives are strengthening the COVID-19 response
• How to start a mutual aid network in a pandemic
• 10 ways to share during the COVID-19 pandemic
• How people with disabilities are sticking together during COVID-19
• Lessons from the First Wave: Resilience in the Age of COVID-19 (free e-book)

The post Amid rising COVID-19 cases, solidarity saves lives in Croatia appeared first on Shareable.

Her organization, Zasadi Stablo, Ne Budi Panj (Grow A Tree, Don’t Be A Stump!)  took over operations of the orchard in Varaždin, in the northwest of Croatia, a town also known as home to the first community gardens in the country. 

Today, community gardens can be found in towns across Croatia, and Varaždin is riding that wave of success with a new project: a community orchard with about 200 pear and apple trees planted in circles, and 90 raspberry and blackberry bushes. In the center there’s room for social gatherings, and a sculpture of a tree made by a local sculptor. 

“We see this orchard as a great opportunity to educate people directly and in such a way that they can later implement that knowledge in their own orchard, if they have one,” Kramar says.

Grow A Tree is already starting to shift the orchard from a conventional cultivation to permaculture. A local university has added two beehives, and plans to add new plant species to increase biodiversity and to attract more bees, as well as birds, bugs, squirrels, and reptiles. 

This, combined with less mowing, should also enhance the soil quality, which should mean more and better fruit come harvest time. 

The orchard, and similar projects, are an opportunity not only to rebuild the soil, but also to rebuild a sense of community.

“It is very important to treat the soil more sustainably, since our soils have been so degraded,” explains Kramar. 

The Grow A Tree community feels that, just like the soil, human communities in Croatia are in many ways exhausted, and are in need of nurturing. The orchard, and similar projects, are an opportunity not only to rebuild the soil, but also to rebuild a sense of community. 

“With this orchard we are hoping to show what a community can do for the environment,” says Kramar who, together with other volunteers, is planning a series of workshops and other programs in the orchard before the first harvest.

Though relatively new in Croatia, community orchards have been around for decades in the United States, Germany, and elsewhere. Grow A Tree’s vision is that community orchards will quickly spread through the country just as community gardens have.

Already, there are signs that this might be happening. 

After learning about  Varaždin’s orchard project, a new initiative emerged in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, where citizens want to start a permacultural community orchard. 

Inquiries are coming in from other cities as well.

“This already looks like an octopus of good influences that is gaining more and more arms. People just needed encouragement and a strong vision.”-Zasadi Stablo, Ne Budi PanjMateja member Angelina Kramar

Kramar says she’s already been asked for guidance on community organizing, and on legal process. “I believe that we will soon have a couple of cities with orchard initiatives,” she says.

She also hopes that fruit can become more accessible to citizens by planting fruit trees around the city, instead of more common, decorative trees found in parks. 

“If we succeed in starting a couple of community orchards, we believe we will be one step closer to changing the laws about using urban spaces for growing food,” she says. “This already looks like an octopus of good influences that is gaining more and more arms. People just needed encouragement and a strong vision.”

Indeed, the same ethos that emboldens Kramar, is beginning to inspire action in a growing network of community-gardening initiatives. These projects are hoping to transform urban realities around the world.

In the United Kingdom, The Orchard Project has planted and tends over 540 community orchards across England, Scotland, and Wales since 2009. 

They notice more and more interest from people to prioritize local climate and ecological conservation. 

“As awareness of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss grows, people want to do something to help. Orchards are a great way to help in a practical, local way.”-Orchard Project Community Manager, Joanne Hooper

“The food supply problems at the start of the pandemic made people question where their supermarket food came from,,” says Orchard Project Communications Manager Joanne Hooper. “Also, the desire to feel more connected to others locally, and connected to nature, have both increased among the general public. As awareness of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss grows, people want to do something to help. Orchards are a great way to help in a practical, local way.”

Community orchards are also places to develop and build a culture of sharing — not only by sharing fruit, but also by passing on traditional skills and rituals. These include traditional Wassail ceremonies, in which people sing to trees to promote better harvest; blossom picnics; and skills such as grafting and pruning. 

“Orchards used to be seen and used as venues for local people in the past, and we try to reinstate that by holding events in them and welcoming people to these special spaces,” Hooper says, including storytelling, yoga, mindfulness, bird watching, foraging, and picnics.

She says these orchards also help people spark new friendships, new connections, and new ideas.

From community building to free food to preserving heirloom varietals, community orchards bear more than fruit. No surprise that the free fruit movement thrives.

Check out these related articles:

• How The Sharing Gardens produces literally tons of free food
• Project builds and re-fruits urban communities across the UK
• Photo essay: community gardens change lives

The post Community orchards bear more than fruit appeared first on Shareable.

These five stories Shareable published in recent months will bring you to toy libraries in Denver and Croatia, introduce you to food sharing projects in some U.S. libraries, give you tips on how to start a toy library, and offer you a possibility to download our free e-book on libraries of things as a cornerstone of the real sharing economy.

1. Kids in Denver share toys for the last 35 years

In the basement of Denver’s Smiley Library Branch is the Northwest Denver Toy Library, one of 400 US toy libraries. This story will introduce you to its long history of teaching children the value of sharing.

Read more: How a Denver Toy Library Has Helped Kids Share for 35 Years

2. Libraries stretch to feeding the hungry

During the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, when many children lost their free meals at schools, some libraries in the US were ready to step in.

Read more: Public libraries are giving away an insane amount of free food

3. European approach to toy libraries

Toy libraries can be found across the world and in this article, we take a look into the first toy library in Croatia.

Read more: How toy libraries are promoting sharing and sustainability in Croatia

4. Download our e-book on libraries of things

Shareable has issued an e-book featuring different aspects of the libraries of things movement and it is free for download.

Read more: Library of Things: A Cornerstone of the Real Sharing Economy (free e-book)

5. Secrets on starting a toy library revealed

Here we bring you 12 quick tips for starting a toy library from a webinar hosted by The Center for a New American Dream.

Read more: How to Start a Toy Library: 12 Quick Tips

The post 5 ways libraries are shifting from just lending books appeared first on Shareable.

“I grew up on this pasture,” says Šimo Beneš, a retired medical doctor and the president of the Brod Ecological Society (BED). “In my childhood, people mainly kept cows, even traditional breed, Podolian cattle. They don’t give milk, so with time they almost perished since already then they have not been used as working animals. Other cattle also decreased and with time, (and about) 30 years ago, an invasive plant species, Amorpha Fruticosa, started taking over. Nothing grows under this bush and this is a big problem in fluvial areas like ours. We saw that the pasture is going to die if we don’t do something.” BED is an environmental nonprofit that began to register pastoral communities. 

Two decades ago, organizers engaged people from two nearby villages — Oprisavci and Poljanci — and bought new cattle from EU funds. Today, the pasturing community Gajna comprises 17 agricultural families that together have over 170 cattle units, and some horses, pigs, and geese.  There is a communal farm and the pasture has no fences or other obstacles, so animals roam freely. 

Traditional cattle breeds are generally the best to hinder invasive species because they are adapted to the local climate, are heat and cold tolerant, and spend the whole year on the pasture. When the river Sava floods the pasture, the cattle are moved to the hilly areas. They also have a barn with open doors for shelter. 

Today, Gajna is an oasis of biological diversity. Herons, storks and other wetland birds enjoy the ponds, and 250 plant species can be found there, including human food, such as mulberry trees. Gajna also serves as a natural hatchery for Sava River fish. The health of the pasture demonstrates why this old way of managing natural resources is worth investigating.

“Traditionally, this type of pastures has been seen as a natural resource used under some written or unwritten rules. Historically it was often less-fertile land that was being used in this way. Our pasture is an area that is regularly flooded and the whole ecosystem is tightly connected with both animal breeding and river dynamics,” says Iris Beneš, program coordinator and Šimo’s daughter. 

Today this type of common management of natural resources is rare. BED took two decades to motivate people and reinvent a model for how to include this type of governance in existing national and international laws and systems. 

Nonprofits like BED are well-placed because they work with local people as well as on the international level with other local communities and indigenous peoples’ organizations to develop common governance values and raise public awareness of direct democracy, sustainability, participation, and responsibility.

Iris said Europe had a patchwork of laws governing collective land, or the commons. “Commonage in the Anglo-Saxon countries is different from that in the Mediterranean countries and a special set of problems plagues those common lands that somehow managed to survive the socialist and communist regimes because mostly the state took formal ownership. In European policies, this problem is almost invisible but there are initiatives that work together to lobby in this field and point out that a collective approach to agricultural land management in (the) European Union is not only more efficient but ultimately the only possible,” Iris said.

The post Biodiversity flourishes as farmers return to collective governance appeared first on Shareable.

Croatian tool library inspires tolerance through sharing

In the Eastern Croatian rural town of Beli Manastir, stands the country’s first and only tool library. “We saw a story about one tool library in the United States and thought why not start it here,” says Duško Kostić, the president of non-government organization Luna,  which runs the library. “Lots of tools you will just use twice a year. Why would you waste money buying it, when you can borrow it in our library.”

Luna works with the region’s marginalized Roma population but the library is open to the whole community, which today includes many unemployed or retired people struggling with financial issues.

“All of this certainly had a lot of impact. Roma people are closer with their neighbors now and some people even managed to get jobs or started their own businesses,” Kostić says.

As well as lending tools, the library runs trainings on how to use them and provides certificates for the use of potentially dangerous tools. This upskilling gives community members an advantage when looking for work.

“We also bought equipment for hairdressers and beauticians. We have girls from Roma community going to these schools but they need practice to have better chances to get a job. So they use this equipment and give free haircuts to older people in the community,” says Kostić.

The tools are used to produce vegetables in two greenhouses and distribute the vegetables free to community members.

Ski hire could level the snowfield for Norwegian kids

Schools throughout Norway frequently hold “ski days” which despite being fun for some, disadvantage children who do not have access to the expensive equipment. An Oslo initiative is calling on schools to get into the library of things business. 

“Children that have access to ski equipment go skiing and the ones that don’t are given an alternative option such as sledding. This creates a social inequality among children, hurting those with the least resources,” says Cynthia Reynolds, coordinator of the Circular Oslo initiative.

“If schools have access to libraries of things, where you could borrow sports equipment, parents would not have to invest in equipment that their children will outgrow in a season, and no children would be excluded from participating,” she continues.

Circular Oslo is a best-practices project which demonstrates how sharing economy initiatives can benefit from government support.

“There are some brilliant initiatives within the circular economy that are also sharing economy solutions, many of these initiatives are flying under the radar. Circular Oslo and the methodology behind it is designed to identify these as well as other Circular Economy initiatives bridging top-down and bottom-up solutions at all stakeholder levels. We map them to identify which of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals they support, as well as the social, economic and environmental impact. This data will help decision-makers develop policy and funding mechanisms to help scale the impact,” Reynolds says.

One of the first mapped projects was Tingenes Bibliotek, a library of things that aims to become financially sustainable by encouraging local companies and government agencies to buy memberships for their staff as a perk.

“This way they would support the sustainability of the organization and enable their workers access to a vast array of products while at the same time lowering the environmental footprint of the whole community,” Reynolds says. “Surprisingly, people didn’t want only stuff like gardening equipment and tools but instead, they also wanted wine glasses, utensils and other stuff for parties.”

Tool library a ‘keystone species’ in Edinburgh community

Chris Hellawell started the Edinburgh Tool Library (ETL) out of an old police box on the main street near his house. Every Saturday for a year, he sat outside, talked to people and signed them up as members but he soon realized people wanted to be more involved.

“We started to get people offering to run the lending side on a Saturday, and so I spent more time looking for further funding and ways to develop the ETL. Others helped me, and eventually, we began employing staff, set up a workshop space to use, and [were] able to generate a significant income, meaning we are much less reliant on grants for our long-term sustainability,” Hellawell says.

After nearly seven years, the library now lends more than 1,000 tools for DIY, gardening, decorating and machine repair. The average UK household spends £110 a year on tools, while annual membership to the tool library costs £30. With the average power drill used for a total of 13 minutes in its lifetime, the library says it is clear most of us do not need to own one. It also runs workshops on woodworking, tool maintenance and bike repair.

“We see ourselves as a keystone species in our community ecosystem and collaborate a lot with other groups who are also doing great work. We aim to bring people who are supported by other charities into our community by introducing them to our spaces…, before giving them the opportunity to be a member or volunteer, like anyone else,” Hellawell says.

Collective buying the secret to 40 years of lending success

The Berkeley Public Tool Lending Library has been in the business of supporting DIY projects in the Bay Area for more than 40 years. Supervising librarian Dan Beringhele said the secret to its success was that it was responsive to community needs.

“All of our tools are used dozens or hundreds of times and repaired to keep them in service. Sharing eliminates waste and all the environmental effects of manufacturing and shipping goods that may only be used once or twice a year. It allows apartment or alternative-dwelling residents the opportunity to use tools without having to store them.  And sharing provides access to high-quality, well-maintained tools to all Berkeley residents, whatever their socioeconomic status may be,”Beringhele says.

The library began as a way to make home repair accessible to people with low incomes and is now housed in the Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch Library, which lends books. 

“Both libraries utilize communal purchasing power to enrich the lives of our community members,” Beringhele says.

It also hosts DIY, gardening and home-maintenance classes. This spring, it will add a culinary tool collection. 

“Providing culinary tools benefits so many in our community: those who cannot afford expensive culinary tools, those who wish to explore a new tool and/or test out new equipment before making a large purchase, those who live in small and/or shared spaces without room for storing culinary tools and those who would use a particular item only once or twice a year so would not purchase it on their own accord,” Beringhele says.

The library’s staff have helped establish other tool libraries in the US, Europe and Mexico. 

“We are excited this special Berkeley Public Library institution has inspired others around the world,” Beringhele says.

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This post is part of our 2020 editorial series on libraries of things. Download the free ebook from the series here.

The post The lending ripple: How libraries of things are changing their cities for the better appeared first on Shareable.

“We are trying to act, and not mourn,” says Filip Brničević, founder of the OAZA Joyful Kitchen restaurant. The vegan restaurant had recently opened in the center of the old town when Croatia closed all contact-based businesses to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Brničević said his business was inspired to act when an earthquake of 5.5 magnitude hit the city of one million. It was the strongest in 140 years and it damaged many buildings in the old part of the city, leaving some people homeless. Brničević and his team began cooking and distributing free meals. 

“We wanted to do something for the benefit of our community. Many people are now closed in their houses or some shelters, some of them lost their jobs and might be depressed. We want to put smiles back on their faces,” he says.

They launched a crowdfunding campaign Zagreb Earthquake – Food for Life to support two months of free meals. One little girl hand-made a drawing and sign that read: “Thank you for helping us. Ena loves you.”

In addition to the restaurant’s efforts,  a social media initiative “Jedni za druge” (which translates to “for each other”) is activating people who want to help others who are self-isolating due to the coronavirus crisis. The group quickly grew to over 16,000 well-organized volunteers, who go to the supermarket for the elderly and who can be reached through one phone number in Croatia’s five biggest cities.  

“We are still focused on people who cannot get out of their homes, we do shopping for them, bring them food from the public kitchen; medicines. We receive other types of requests also and try to connect them with authorities in charge. And sometimes people just want to talk to someone or want something nonessential, like board games. We try to find time for this too,” says Tia Špero, a coordinator.

Volunteers are also helping clear the thousands of chimneys that were shaken loose by the quake, threatening to fall. A team of local alpine climbers has volunteered to secure the dangerous chimneys. 

“Many people cannot afford to pay construction companies to fix their roofs so we help them. We receive so many beautiful emails, people say we gave them back the trust in humans in general. It is really nice to give them hope, says climber Ana Kontrec, after her fifth consecutive day of roof volunteering.

“We like to climb and for us this is also a challenge, to use our skills and solve a problem. It’s not a sacrifice, we like doing it.” 

Mental health workers have stepped in to offer support to people feeling isolated, or experiencing shock and trauma from the earthquake and the loss of jobs and homes. A group called Niste sami (You Are Not Alone) has engaged psychotherapists and psychotherapy students to offer free online and phone support.

“I was surprised how many educated therapists and students volunteered (to join) every day. It is wonderful to see how many people are willing to offer their support,” says platform founder Rajana Radosavljev.

The platform launched the day after the earthquake. People can book their sessions via an online form and a volunteer will answer.

“We realized this kind of support is needed more than ever. At first, people were most afraid of new earthquakes and there were lots of issues with panic. At the moment, it is more about isolation and fears from pandemic consequences. It is not about somebody having to have a huge problem, every emotion somebody might have is welcomed,” says Radosavljev.

Tia Špero said it seemed the crisis has brought out the best in Zagreb’s community. 

“People feel the need to engage in their local community, we hope this will continue,” she says. 

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This article is part of our reporting on The People’s COVID-19 Response. Here are a few articles from the series:

• Coronavirus catalyzes growing wave of grassroots action despite social distancing
• The coronavirus pandemic calls us to share more than ever
• The People’s COVID-19 Response needs you
• 10 ways to share during the COVID-19 pandemic
• The pandemic isn’t a portal, yet
• The Response: Resisting COVID-19 with mutual aid in Chico, CA
• 20 ways Shareable readers are helping during the pandemic

Download our free ebook- The Response: Building Collective Resilience in the Wake of Disasters (2019)

The post Mending a double crisis with solidarity appeared first on Shareable.

“I am coming from a tiny village in which sharing is a way of living. For example, if someone has food for today then he will share it, not because he wants to share but because he is not sure if he will have food for tomorrow but he knows for sure that someone else will have food for tomorrow and they will share it as well,” Aamer said.

The company has rescued 900 bikes since January 2018, and they sell from $60. 

“We aim to reduce the waste of resources and reach zero bikes stolen or abandoned. We believe that reuse should not be just an option but the first thing to do. Recycling is the last thing to do to reduce CO2 emissions from melting bikes components,” the company states on its webpage.

The company offers discounts for students the option to sell the bike back when you leave town. Maintenance is free, a big bonus because most of the bikes are old and the town’s tough winters mean the bikes need more maintenance. 

“We are still struggling to cover our basic needs and cost for the project but we are building many smart partnerships and collaboration with the local authorizes and other organizations,” Aamer said.

To prevent bicycle theft, the company is developing a digital registration system for bikes. The bike’s owner is flagged during a transaction to reduce thefts and illegal sales. 

“Although we are facing so many challenges to change people’s mentality of using secondhand stuff through a circular economy process, we want to increase the life duration of every bike by making the connection between the bikes and their owners stronger,” Aamer said. 

Umeå Wheels aims to make bike use easier, creating a more sustainable city. The owners want to make using the eco-friendly bike the primary way people get around.

The post Umeå Wheels provides a new life for abandoned bicycles appeared first on Shareable.

“When I first arrived in Berlin [from Ireland] I didn’t have a bicycle, and this city is too big to walk everywhere. I didn’t want to pay 10 euro per day in rental shops. I thought there must be some kind of bicycle sharing project here but there wasn’t,” Pope says.

Taking a cue from the Couchsurfing model, which connects global travelers to locals who offer a place to stay, Pope and one other volunteer started the bike sharing project in June 2012. They began by offering three of their own bicycles to be used by visitors to the city for free, and with time others started to donate more bicycles and the project grew.

“We have 20 bikes in Berlin at the moment, in four different locations. Two years ago we had 40 in eight locations but had to scale down because every bicycle needs to be maintained regularly, and this takes time. And, volunteers keep the bicycles [at their homes or workplaces] — two to five bikes each — so it is also a space issue,“ says Pope.

Bicycles can be booked via the online platform. Since the bike locks they use are based on number code, when you choose a bike on the platform you get the location of the bike and the lock code. You also get an email reminder to return the bike on time. 

Enthusiasts in other cities can easily join and offer their bicycles through the same platform. After seven-and-a-half years, the network can now be found in seven cities in four different countries: two other German cities, Freiburg and Darmstadt; Paris, France; Thessaloniki, Greece; and two Hungarian towns, Budapest and Egger.

“We give everybody who wants to join free access to the platform and also advise on how to use it. The only condition is that the platform can be used only for non-commercial purposes. While each city can decide the details of how they want to operate, if any money is exchanged, it has to go back for the project’s costs,” says Pope.

In Berlin, the program started out completely free of charge, but in time Pope realized they were not receiving enough donation money to be able to cover the costs of the activity. Today they charge a  small fee — usually one to three euros per day. 

“A  one-way public transport ticket in Berlin costs almost three euros, so this is still a cheap option. If somebody doesn’t have that money, he or she can contribute in another way. [Maybe they] help us with website maintenance, for an example. We don’t want to encourage people to take without exchange — it’s not good for any sharing project. We try to gently teach people that we are volunteers, and that they cannot expect that we pay for bike locks and web hosting from our own pockets,” explains Pope.

The Bikesurf philosophy is, the more people are engaged, the more they feel like they are part of the project. Trust is of crucial importance and users have shown themselves to be very trustworthy. As of this moment, of 4,000 people using bikes in Berlin, only two Bikesurf bikes have been stolen by users.

“That’s a really small percentage; I expected it to be higher. It is a more common problem, for example, for somebody to leave the bike at the train station because that’s convenient for them, and then we have to go and search for the bike among thousands of bikes there,” says Pope. 

Sometimes people who use the service meet with local volunteers and spend time with them, just like users of Couchsurfing. But if volunteers are too busy, the system functions even without people seeing each other.

“If something is free it doesn’t mean it has no value. For me, sleeping on somebody’s couch is more valuable than a hotel room — the experience is more valuable, ” says Pope, who also volunteers in another bicycle related sharing project, Rückenwind Bike Kitchen, which offers free bike repairs for the public and provides donated bicycles for refugees in Berlin.

“The goal is the same: Get more people on bikes!” Pope concludes.

Getting more people on bicycles not only promotes sharing among people, but also has other benefits for the whole society. For example, greenhouse gas emissions from traffic are still very high in Germany, and bicycles can be a valuable part of the solution, which makes project like Bikesurf even more important.

The post How the Couchsurfing concept launched a bike sharing network in Europe appeared first on Shareable.