Time banks, farmer-to-buyer sales groups and alternative currencies springing up but expansion has not been steady or easy

As money has become tighter in Greece, an alternative “solidarity economy” has sprung up providing everything from food and medical care to hairdressing and language classes to thousands – without a euro changing hands.

The Athens Time Bank, for example, allows members to collect credits by offering an hour of their time to someone who needs their services. The bank boasts doctors, dentists, electricians, yoga teachers and plumbers among its ranks, but the most popular service on offer is psychotherapy – highlighting how years of austerity have eaten away at more than just savings and living standards.

“These are the seeds, we are still in the beginning,” said member Christine Papadopoulou, who is also one of the coordinators of an annual “festival of solidarity” that brings together thousands of people for discussions, concerts and workshops each autumn.

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The network is made up of a diverse patchwork of groups. Some have rejected money entirely, like the time bank and the Helleniki clinic, a centre in Athens that serves more than 100 people a day entirely on donations of supplies and time while discouraging cash contributions.

Others have experimented with alternative currencies that can be used alongside shrinking euro income, while some initiatives are commercial enterprises that reject the pursuit of profit, such as communes and direct farmer-to-buyer sales groups.

Most had their roots in anti-austerity protests and demonstrations in 2011, when the government unveiled a sweeping set of tax increases and benefit cuts meant to tackle the debt problems, and years of mass unemployment and failing services began.

“There were a lot of ideas circulating before, but in the context of the crisis there was an incentive to put them into action. The other part was need, you had a lot of people who had lost their jobs,” said Ilias Ziogas, of the Syn Allios (Together with Others) cooperative, set up in 2011 to sell fair-trade goods.

It has managed to increase sales as regular shops have failed, something Ziogas puts down to the desire for different ways of living. “Its not a huge movement, let’s not exaggerate, but it’s something that has grown in the last few years,” he said.

The expansion has not been steady, or easy. The sprolonged financial crises that hollowed out the conventional economy has also taken out many of the radical alternatives, often small, fragile systems vulnerable to fatigue or infighting.

There are many projects whose obsolete websites stand as the only memorials to their founders’ dreams, ranging from a project for unemployed young people in Athens to the votsalo (pebble) currency.

Of all the “solidarity economy” projects, alternative currencies have drawn perhaps the most media attention amid questions about what Greece will do if it runs out of euros or decides to leave the shared currency. But running a currency is complex and demanding, and most have been short-lived.

“When the [votsalo] project started in 2012, the aim was to cover our basic needs, to stop thinking as a consumer, start thinking as a human being. [To prove] that we can live without money,” said Margarita Kiriakou, one of the founders, who now thinks it was a mistake to dabble in an alternative form of money.

Some members were overwhelmed by demand and could not spend what they earned, while others saw it simply as free cash. “The dentists, one of the most popular services, couldn’t get rid of their votsalos, and others took a lot without providing services.”

That was also a problem for Greece’s most successful alternative currency, the tem, said Ioanna Kostopolis, daughter of one of the original founders. It owes its durability in part to a programmer who spent time in San Francisco and set up a very robust software base for the currency, but they still had to deal with human challenges.

“In the beginning we gave 300 tem to anyone who registered, so they could start spending, but many saw it basically as a giveaway of €300, spent it and never came back,” she said from the northern port of Volos. “After we saw what was going on, it went down to 50 or then 20.”

They also had problems with people using the network to tout for work, then demanding payments in euros instead of tem. Each one has to be cautioned and then thrown out at public meetings, a laborious process, but the group has since settled down.

“It’s good to have just a few hundred people, then you know each other and trust each other and have solidarity like we do,” said Kostopolis. “Otherwise it’s an open market like anyone else, you don’t know who will rip you off.”

She cannot imagine the currency spreading outside Volos because of this, but said its founders were looking at other ways to organise nationwide exchanges of goods and services that might bypass conventional cash.

Thousands of Greeks are benefiting from perhaps the simplest of the “solidarity economy” projects nationwide, a movement that links buyers directly to the people who produce their food, detergent and other essentials, undercutting supermarkets.

Most take orders before a monthly meeting when cash and goods are handed over. In a country with a notorious parallel market, even the government wins, because all transactions are recorded, said 38-year-old teacher Dimitris Tsilogiannis.

“We have had a great response from the public, all we do is totally legal and most importantly all sellers give receipts,” he said during an evening spent manning phones to answer queries and help buyers unable to use the internet. In the office with him were a soldier, an unemployed friend and an office worker, all of them volunteers.

Their local group has coordinated the sale of 1,500 tonnes of potatoes, olive oil, rice, flour, fruits, honey, cheese, pulses and other products at prices around a third to half of supermarket levels.

“It needs time, hard work and a lot of effort from its members,” Tsilogiannis said. “But we have a result that’s very inspiring and we feel that people respond to our purpose.”

With further sweeping cuts agreed this week, the need for the alternative sector is only likely to grow, drawing in new members and inspiring others to try again. Those who have stumbled say their dreams are more robust than their organisations.

“Now the crisis has grown I think something will happen,” said Kiriakou, one of the founders of a failed currency. “Maybe we will organise again with different people.”