Transparency
Yes @elf-pavlik I totally agree. Using https://www.loomio.org/d/p1w0UZzs/new-residencies would and should be the way to go. I remember well the original discussion at unMonastery about this topic. Your suggestion, which was supported by the whole group, was that given there was short term space at the unMonastery, and a pressing need for Italian speakers and other forms of project help, we should look for people to fill these places based on reputation and the need of the project. This reputation based do-ocracy is at the pragmatic core of EdgeRyders.
As @mariabyck was the only person objecting to this approach - because of her passion for democratic inclusion (particularly for the local people living and working in Matera), it was suggested that she take a lead on this issue - which she has valiantly done! It’s a lot of work, and she should be praised for putting the time and effort into to do this.
However…
I’m making this post to introduce a topic I feel is central to both democracy, and effective community engagement. This is not the way to do things! This is a half hearted and superficial way to attempt democratic community engagement.
It is half hearted because it is neither democratic, nor makes effective use of personal knowledge and real word-of-mouth engagement of people on the ground. Also, and importantly, it is not transparent. As was brought up in the original meeting, but so far not addressed (at least publicly), the hard question is not - let’s make a widely publicised “call”, nor “post your project proposals on a web site so everyone can read it”. The real democratic question is who decides. Is it a small group, all the present residents of the unMonastery? Or perhaps the whole EdgeRyders community? Do we include people in Matera? These are the real issues.
True democratic transparency would be to use something like Loomio, and / or hold local group meetings to get peoples opinions locally who don’t use these platforms. True effective community engagement would have been to trust people on the ground and actively go out and seek people with the required skills. Doing a bit of both gives us the worst of both worlds - a long process, beds empty, projects with unmet needs and no real democratic decision making ever taking place. I feel strongly that both strategies are good, if they are done fully and properly in a transparent way, but this is not the way to do it. It’s a pigs dinner and we can and should do better than this!