Tighter Ties

Gaining Currency in Osaka

By YUKO YAMADA
Asahi Evening News, March 2nd, 2001

 

 

 

 

Groups in Osaka are adopting a unique way to help homeless people get back on their feet: take away their yen.
The Kamagasaki town reform forum committee, one of these groups, wants to distribute a local currency called kama in place of real money to day laborers in the Airin area of Osaka's Nishinari Ward.

"The purpose of kama is to help people who are troubled economically, physically and mentally," said Sen Arimura, a staff member of the Nishinari Labor Welfare Center. "As a result, residents in the town discover their own capabilities, recover confidence and trust, and form ties with each other." .The Kamagasaki town reform forum committee, consisting of residents, welfare workers and nonprofit organizations, has helped to organize the project.

In the local summer festival last year, staff members paid homeless people 200 kama - the equivalent of 200 yen - per kilogram of collected empty soft-drink cans.The city's normal rate is 80 yen per kilogram.
About 80 people hauled in a total of 300 kilograms of empty cans over a three-day period. Participants could use the kama to buy cold beer or food at the festival.

Arimura, who is also chief of the Kamagasaki town reform forum committee, designed the kama bills with a picture of a day laborer working.

Most of the day laborers in the area lost their construction jobs during the prolonged economic slump. Jobless people cannot pay the 1,500 yen fee to stay in a cheap inn.Aging is also a severe problem; laborers over 55 are often physically unable to work at construction sites and have difficulties surviving on the streets.

Arimura said Kamagasaki is also home to many people traumatized by the collapse of their families or alcoholism. Others are criminals on the run or the victims of bankruptcy.
Many try to escape by drinking and gambling.
Kama helps to push homeless people away from such habits. More importantly, it gives the people a sense of belonging.

The kama project is based on the successful "Ithaca Hours" project in New York state.
One Ithaca hour is the equivalent of 10 Ithaca dollars, because $10 is the average hourly wage in the community.
Members include grocery stores, hospitals, farmers and more than 300 businesses. The members, who receive two Ithaca Hours by paying the $1 application fee, trade the Hours to receive or provide any service from plumbing to shopping. The services are listed in a local newspaper.

Arimura's dream is that kama will experience success equal to Ithaca Hour in reforming the community. Participants will exchange goodwill or services and buy daily essentials in a member's shop with kama, he says.
The project is in its early stages, but has already expanded to include a different type of local currency based on the Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) , which was created in Canada in 1983.

This bankbook-type system allows an applicant to pay a membership fee to open an account. In return, the member gets a bankbook and a service list from the administrative office.
Members post desirable or available services or goods on the list.

The LETS system uses the credit system. For example, a woman needing a baby sitter for an hour can contact someone on the list or obtain a name through the office.The two then decided on the price. If one hour of baby sitting is worth 1,000 units, the baby sitter receives the credits while the woman loses 1,000 units. But even if the woman falls in debt, she does not need to pay interest.

Through a similar project in Osaka, a 67-year-old man homeless man last October left the streets and started living in the welfare house "Hidamari." When he participated in a role-playing game to understand the LETS system, he wrote in the bankbook "to be a walking companion" as a service he could provide. He also said he required "a coach for bowling and a teacher in money management".
Finally, a trade was made.
"After the game, the participant's attitude changed," Arimura said.

Twice a week, helper Toshiko Imoto visits the house. Some participants suggested that they could escort Imoto to the station when she goes home at night Arimura intends to expand the program to three other welfare houses.
"The most important thing is residents recognize that somebody needs them through playing a game," Arimura said. "If they experience such a feeling, the local currency is virtually a success."

More than 2,000 local currency systems are used around the world.
In Switzerland. a corporate association bank called WIR has been in use since 1936. Small businesses are the main members.The program is now so large 60,000 members, that one can even purchase houses through the system.

In Japan, 11 communities have started their own local currency programs.
In Kobe's Higashinada Ward, "raku" was issued in October last year. Applicants receive 24 raku after paying 1,000 yen as a membership fee. About 30 members use raku to exchange goods or services, including homemade cake, watering, conversations, massage and organic vegetables.

For example, a 30-minute massage costs one raku. Members write their raku trades on the back of the raku bill.
"In the old times, people communicated with each other, but now I hesitate to say 'please lend me some soy sauce' to my neighbor," said Masako Kawauchi, as staff member of the Community Support Center Kobe, the brains behind the raku system. "Our purpose is to do volunteer activities without any currency."

Organizers of Rainbow Ring, a Japanese Web site that allows people to trade goods and services through the LETS system on the Internet, hopes the service catches on among young people.
"Some youths who need a sense of belonging could use Rainbow Ring," said founder Yoshihiro Abe in Tokyo. "They are looking for somebody who needs them."
 

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Economic analyst: Money isn't everything

By YUKO YAMADA
Asahi Evening News

One economic analyst says Japanese would be happier working for Peanuts.
Eiichi Morino, one of the authors of "Ende's Last Message" points out the advantages and disadvantages of money and praises a local-currency project in Chiba Prefecture, called Peanuts.

The purpose of the book, which was published in 1999, is to make readers reconsider the real meaning of money by taking in the philosophy of German author Michael Ende (1925-1995).
"Pursuing jobs to earn money brought us privacy and a rich life, but we lost community ties in the process," Morino said. "A person might come from a rural area because he hated the close relationship in the community. But after a while, he cannot endure living in a city because of the isolation. People seek ties in the big city, but religious cults and swindlers are waiting for them."

Ende's philosophy is that a local currency system works better because there are no negative aspects. It enriches communities and strengthens relations. Morino emphasized that local currencies can help people exchange goodwill and could be the most effective tool to recover ties in communities.

Such ties, he said, are vital for each person to recognize their role in society.
Two projects-Peanuts and Omi in Gifu Prefecture - are the most successful cases in cosmopolitan areas, he said.
In Peanuts, about 230 members, including businesses and farmers, receive 1,000 pea (pea is named after peanuts, a special product of Chiba Prefecture) instead of yen for performing one hour of volunteer activities. The pea is distributed by the Chiba Machizukuri Support Center which controls all balances in each person's pea account.

For example, when members buy vegetables from a member's shop, they pay 5 percent of the total with pea.
The shops can then contribute the pea to two welfare centers or new members, or they can use the pea to buy something else. The pea repeatedly circulate in the community .

"Peanuts is a case of a local currency linking with yen and aims to promote the community," Morino said. "Member shops' profits have grown more than 5 percent. 'The most significant thing is people look so happy with their smiles compared to before they started Peanuts. Their slogan is 'from saying welcome to hello'. The members have become companions."

In the Omi project, members use cards or paper currency instead of bankbooks to exchange goods and services. They can also use Omi to pay taxi fares or buy discount movie tickets.

Morino said it appears difficult for the "kama" local-currency project in Kamagasaki, Osaka, to be as successful as Ithaca Hour in New York state, but people should not give up.
This, however, will take time, much like the concept of electronic money in Japan, he said.
Morino said each resident in each community should focus on problems and find solutions to promote the community, welfare system, or both.
A local currency is a toolbox, and residents should choose an appropriate tool depending on the purpose, he said.

'Think globally, act locally," said Morino. "Globalization widened the gap in income between the rich and poor."

In the past 30 years, the United States absorbed 60 percent of the world's wealth, but a small percentage of the U.S. population controlled most of that money. On the other hand, the income level of the lower and middle classes has not gained that much. Meanwhile, half the Earth's 6 billion people are starving, Morino said. 'The Japanese yen flies to a place where it can bring more profit," the economist said. 'The yen never remains in the local community if the government continues to spend. Making a community's economy stronger would enrich the Earth.

"If you borrow lots of yen and die without repayment, you will die with regret. However, when a person dies with debts in a local currency, he will die with thankfulness. Then the balance will become zero."

© Asahi Evening News