This holiday season, reduce financial stress for low-income earners, support green jobs in worker-owned Australian manufacturing and promote positive solutions to the climate crisis.
During December and January, Earthworker Cooperative is running a crowdfund campaign to deliver high-quality solar hot water systems to low-income households. Your contribution will ease the cost of living for those receiving them by reducing hot water heating costs by up to 72%. Additionally, it will support Australia’s first worker-owned manufacturing cooperative, Eureka’s Future Workers Cooperative, located in Dandenong, Victoria, which manufactures top quality ‘Solar Ready’ hot water tanks.
Climate change and the increasing cost of living affect us all, but the most vulnerable people and communities are often those with the least resources to adapt. Together, we can create energy security for people in our communities that need it the most, as well as job security in local green manufacturing.
Let’s ensure no-one is left behind in the transition to a greener economy!
We’ve partnered with a number of community housing organisations, including Aboriginal Housing Victoria and Common Equity NSW, to install hot water systems in their properties.
Aboriginal Housing Victoria is Australia’s largest Aboriginal housing organisation. A registered not-for-profit, AHV manages 1525 properties in Melbourne and regional Victoria, providing affordable housing to over 4000 low income Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. AHV’s vision is that Aboriginal Victorians are able to secure appropriate, affordable housing as a pathway to better lives and stronger communities. Its housing services are targeted to those most in need of support. Find out more at: www.ahvic.org.au
With your support, we’re working in solidarity with AHV to help them extend the meaningful work they do for the traditional custodians of this continent.
Common Equity NSW seeks to assist low-income families and individuals to live better and, obtain a brighter, secure future through access to housing they can afford. Common Equity NSW Ltd is a not for profit community housing provider which operates the majority of its properties in the Co-operative Housing model, offering rental accommodation in Sydney metro and select regional areas for people who are in need of low cost accommodation.
Find out more at: www.commonequity.com.au
Common Equity NSW is keen to participate in the ‘Give Tanks’ Crowdfund campaign by receiving a number of donated Eureka’s Future Solar Hot Water Systems for placement at properties housing people on low income who will value from sustainable and affordable hot water.
By donating you will help lessen financial stress on the residents and ensure they are part of our collective response to climate change.
This gift-giving campaign is being run entirely by volunteers. All of the money raised will go towards buying and installing the hot water systems. This means that more of your donation goes to funding the solar hot water systems into low-income households. We are people supporting other people in the transition to a safe climate future.
We will be installing two things: heat pump solar hot water systems and high quality, Australian made stainless-steel hot water tanks. These complete systems cost approximately $2,500 – $2,850, depending on the tank size required (after government rebates). Installation costs approximately $600.
Our target will purchase and install a minimum of 30 complete hot water systems. This may be matched in whole or in part by our community partners, giving us the potential to double our impact. We have no upper limit to the number of installs we will undertake; the higher above our target we reach the more systems we can install where they are most needed.
Earthworker Cooperative is setting up an Australia-wide network of community owned cooperatives. We’ve begun with Eureka’s Future Workers Cooperative – a worker-owned factory manufacturing high quality solar hot water tanks in Dandenong. As production at Eureka’s Future increases, Earthworker will expand operations to fossil-fuel dependent areas like Morwell in the heart of Victoria’s coal-burning Latrobe Valley.
Forging unlikely alliances between trade unionists, environmentalists and small manufacturers, Earthworker Cooperative has been commended by the Executive Director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres as “an innovative and practical way to address climate change whilst providing dignified, community-sustaining livelihoods — an exciting and tangible step in a ‘just transition’, and an inspiring example of cleaner, fairer economies.”
In 2014 we raised close to $80,000 in a similar crowdfund over two weeks. This was the first step towards worker-control of Eureka’s Future. We don’t receive funding from government or large philanthropic bodies, instead relying on memberships and small donations.
Visit www.earthworkercooperative.com.au for more information about the project, to become an Earthworker Cooperative member, or to find out about getting your own top quality solar hot water system.
The worker-led climate solution will be run and funded from below!