The
concept of ‘collaborative economy’, named also as ‘sharing’ or ‘crowd-based
economy’ can be defined as an ‘economic opportunity for individuals to trade
their underutilized assets with other individuals through intermediaries that
match supply and demand in an efficient way’.[1]
Romania is far from being a progressive player in the platform of collaborative
economy, demonstrated by the statistics (52% of the surveyed Romanians
have never heard of collaborative platforms).[2]
However, according to researchers, it is something that will develop over the
years, due to the fact, that in Romania ‘there is hyper-consumption based on
the idea of owning things, things that are not needed and which people probably
will not use too often. The collaborative economy can correct this’.[3]
It is evident that the
influence of Western countries is noticeable. AirBnb, the example of
peer-to-peer economy is already popular
across Romania, Uber and Blablacar are widely used car sharing platforms and
there is an increasing number of people who ‘rent’ movies and music on Netflix
and Spotify. There are also a number of local initiatives in our city Sfantu
Gheoghe. Vintage-style persons organize flea markets, sharing their clothes
they do not use anymore. Recently, a group of young people from the school set
up a project of free book-sharing by bookshelves located in different places of
the city.
The question is, how can
people with disabilities join and participate actively in the ‘world of sharing
economy’? As a previous example of collaborative economy that our organization
Christian Foundation Diakonia Sfantu Gheorghe initiated, we can mention first
the ‘Organic green box’ programme. Boxes full of organic vegetables were
delivered to families in each month of the season for a monthly fee. These vegetables
were planted and harvested by people with disabilities. Another model of
sharing economy was the piggy-bank project, where people could ‘lease’ a pig
for a year, fed by people with disabilities, and at the end they got it in a
processed way.
In terms of art, after
starting the project Collaborative Economy without Barriers, we set as a target
the development of collaborative workshops where people with disabilities,
together with people from outside of our organization create artistic objects
from recycled materials. The first workshop implemented our experience in
making candles and brought as a result numerous beautiful Christmas
decorations. At the second workshop, based on the idea of sharing economy, people
with and without disabilities designed and created Christmas decorations made
from recycled glass, pieces of art that are unique indeed.
These are just tiny
steps towards a developed collaborative economy where people share their
unutilized goods, but planting the idea and establishing the foundation of this platform are the first steps that are certainly essential.
[1] EuP
Directorate General for Internal Policies, ‘An economic review on the Collaborative Economy’ (2016), p 13.
[2]
European Commission - Public Opinion. Flash Eurobarometer 438, ‘The use of collaborative
platforms’ (2016). Available at http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/PublicOpinion,
last accessed 18.12.2019.
[3] Alma
Pentescu, Iuliana Cetina, ‘Sharing Economy In Romania - Is Sharing The Future
Of Business?’ (2018), Revista Economica, Lucian Blaga University
of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 70(2), p 115.
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