Going local: Minga, a multi-solution cooperative in Portugal

Join Jorge Gonçalves and Alexandre Castro from Cooperativa Integral Minga, in conversation with Local Futures' Anja Lyngbaek, to learn about the history, practices, values, and vision of this inspiring multi-sector cooperative that is home to numerous small businesses. Minga also manages a shop selling locally-made products, an internal currency, a community space, agroecology projects, and more.

Wednesday, February 16th, 2022.  4pm London  |  11am New York

This 1-hour session (which may extend to 90 minutes) takes place in Zoom, and will also be live streamed to Facebook. Make sure to join in Zoom if you want to ask questions.

COOPERATIVA INTEGRAL MINGA is located in the small rural town of Montemor-o-Novo in Portugal. It was founded "to reverse a process common to many rural Portuguese towns: population loss, the abandonment of agriculture and the decline of local commerce."

The cooperative acts as an umbrella for multiple small businesses, ranging from food producers to graphic designers. In the process, it connects local farmers and consumers and promotes agroecological farming. It runs a shop that facilitates the distribution of a range of local products, including food, clothes, and all-natural cosmetics. It also manages a community space and an internal currency, and takes part in a broader local currency initiative. The cooperative encourages principles and practices of slowing down, consuming less, sourcing local and seasonal food, and reintegrating people with nature. Read more about Minga on the Lush Spring Prize 2021 website.

ALEXANDRE CASTRO is the current president of Cooperativa Integral Minga.
As part of the cooperative, he has also run a software and design studio inside
Minga since 2016. With a formal education in communication design and long-term informal training in software development, he is now taking on the challenge of being part of the management group at Minga, and applying his experience with systems thinking and design project methodologies.

His former pursuits included working as a designer at Barbara Says Design Studio, teaching at the university ESAD.cr (Escola Superior de Artes e Design das Caldas da Rainha), and running a maker space in Caldas da Rainha. Around 20 years ago, he co-founded punkPT, which for a few years was the main source of information on the punk scene in Portugal. Alexandre enjoys amateur woodworking in his free time.

JORGE GONÇALVES holds a PhD in Economics from TU-Berlin (2010-2013). He currently works as a researcher at University of Coimbra for JUST2CE (European research on the circular economy); provides consultancy for cooperatives, associations, local currencies, and reforestation projects; and is a board member of Wind Empowerment (UK). He is a founding member of Minga, having served as a board member between 2015 and 2021, and is a founding member of A.Mor (Association for Local Currency of Montemor).

From 2013 to 2019, he worked as a consultant for PTB in Germany, coordinating impact assessment studies on renewable energies and energy efficiency programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. From 2006 to 2007, he worked for rural development projects in India, Indonesia, and Thailand.

ANJA LYNGBAEK, Associate Programs Director at Local Futures, works on many projects, including the International Alliance for Localization, the Economics of Happiness Conference Series and World Localization Day. She divides her time between a Mexican ecovillage and a small island in the Danish Archipelago.

VOICES FROM THE FIELD is a series of conversations hosted in connection with the Localization Action Guide, featuring people that have hands-on experience with actions that can help build healthy communities, direct democracy and human-scale ecological economies.