STRO wins the Wörgl prize for innovative and practical money projects



Recently STRO has won the “Michael Unterguggenberger prize of the Austrian city of Wörgl 2007”.
The prize is named after mayor Unterguggenberger, who in the thirties took the initiative for the famous Wörgl Free Money. This Free Money appeared to be extremely successful in fighting poverty and unemployment in these Depression years.


STRO won the prize for two projects:
1. The innovating combination of micro-credit and local money in the poor quarter of Rubem Berta near the Brazilian city of Porte Alegre.

2. Companies network CompRaS in Rio Grande do Sul. Transactions between affiliated companies in internal units make investments possible under particular, positive conditions.

We shall spend the prize of € 5,000.- ‘close to home’ in Rubem Berta on our project by and for street children: “Earning food by learning”.

Ten jury members, internationally renowned scientists, judged the entries. The criteria were: creativity, practical feasibility, strengthening of social cohesion and the increase of insight in complementary money.

Henk van Arkel, director of STRO, received the prize. In his speech of thanks he compared the self-confidence of Wörgl’s inhabitants in the year 1933 with that of Rubem Berta’s inhabitants in the year 2007: ‘self-confident people have a basis to try out new things’. And: ‘We do not say that we have the solution, but we are learning from the past to give shape to the future in a responsible way.’

The nominees were among others: Attac Summer Academy, local money projects in Germany and Austria and another STRO project: Merapi Mulia Credit Union .

http://www.unterguggenberger.org/page.php?id=196
http://www.unterguggenberger.org/page.php?id=200

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