For obvious reasons, we gradually become aware of the limitations of the current economic system: as it created (much) wealth, it generates inequalities, exclusion, ill-being, global warming and increasing scarcity of natural resources …

Facing this situation, small businesses of all forms (delicatessens, food cooperatives, ecological clothing stores, …) are appearing on our territories and selling high quality products/services, whether in a sustainable way or simply in the human authenticity of their relationship with the customer.

But let's face the truth, it's not always easy for them. Because of lack of time and money or of isolation and unaccessibility, they don't meet the success they should. And yet, a lot of polls show that a majority of people would want to change their consumption habits towards these kind of products. Something must be missing…

So… let's fix it. Together, let's make them become mainstream.

Mission

We are on a mission to make responsible shops more visible, accessible and resilient.

Our VISION: We want to give the possibility for everyone to drive change towards a more sustainable world.

Values

Sustainability

We want to make our cities more eco-friendly and sustainable. All decisions will be made with the overarching goal to drive change in this direction.

Our commitment: We make a selection of the small businesses committed to our quality charter.

Collective

We want to improve the basic customer/merchant relationship and go beyond the purely buyer/seller scheme. We believe customers and merchants sharing the same values should get together to build a better social collectivity in their city.

Our commitment: We organize events to bring these two separated groups sharing the same values together.

Creativity

We believe creativity is the core energy of a collective. This is his very first added value. It also maintains positiveness and harmony.

Our commitment: We will always prefer a bottom-up approach and include the collective in the important decisions. That's why our collective is using Slack and Loomio to self-organize and empower his members.

Independence

We don’t want to depend on any public or private institutions. We want to always remain serving 100% the interests of the collective members. This found the resilience of our business model.

Our commitment: We will remain funded mainly by the collective. To become a member shop listed on Womer => subscribe or To show your support => donate :-)

Transparency

We love transparency as a guarantee for trust and the minimum condition to create inspiring organisations in the 21st century.

Our commitment: We will be a self-organized and self-sustained organisation, with this open-collective you can track every single expense that we have made with our subscriptions and donations.

FAQ

Why?

Ecological awareness is growing in Belgium and in Europe, that's a fact. But somehow, something is missing for many people to do their part towards the right direction. In the urgency of the day-to-day life:

• Small independant businesses lack visibility to continue or expand their business against the big brands.
• As for us, humans, citizens of the world, of a nation or a city, despite our desire to consume differently, too often we lack information, time or money to actually change our consumption habits that are feeding a system which we don't trust anymore.

Finally, despite their difficulties, we believe that both these more or less isolated players want to basically go in the same direction … To act locally for a more human, genuine solidarity !

We want to fill this gap by providing a tool for these shops and consumers sharing the same values to unite and act together to do their part.

What?

We bring them together to be more resilient, as a collective with common values and we use the power of technology to boost their reach.

In this effort we do two main things:

• We organize events (meetups, workshops, afterworks,…). By doing this we want to co-create a Quality Charter that will be used as a manifesto.

• We develop a mobile plateform which aims to boost their visibility with the help of their customers, turning them into ambassadors.

We want it to be a co-creation, because we believe that real change in the 21st century can only be done in a bottom-up fashion.

Contribute

We are looking for people/business to help us by:

• opening their doors for (one or more) events, contact us via the mail adress below our join our slack to discuss directly with us.
• joining (permanently or not) our core team to boost our communication
• participate in our collective to grow our member base of responsible shops and customers, join our slack to learn more.
• becoming a member for 30$/month, enjoy our service on Womer App and give your feedback :-)

Contact

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: http://www.womer.be/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Womer.commerce/
• Blog: https://medium.com/womer
• Slack: https://womercollective.slack.com/