From Croatia, Dražen Šimleša brings to the Nyéléni Forum the experience of Recycled Estate, a living community and eco-social education center in permaculture, located 25 km from Zagreb. In a context where rural areas are losing population and much farmland remains uncultivated, this space has become a laboratory for the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) in service of food sovereignty.
Through the Zelena mreža aktivističkih grupa/ Green Network of Activist Groups (ZMAG), Dražen and his collective promote a community seed bank, a solidarity-based short supply chain managed by the Cooperative for Good Economy, workshops on regenerative agriculture, and political advocacy processes. All of this is rooted in SSE values: democracy, inclusion, solidarity, and ecological sustainability.
For Dražen, a fair economy means that enterprises and collectives are transparent, participatory, and reinvest their profits into the community while minimizing environmental harm. It’s about money and resources flowing like nature: sustainably and regeneratively. In practice, this means fair wages, gender equality, economic democracy, and markets in the hands of producers and consumers.
he biggest challenge remains visibility and scale: many initiatives work well but are small and lack the power to influence national policies on their own. That’s why Dražen emphasizes the importance of networks like RIPESS, which weave ecosystems beyond isolated efforts and connect the local to the global.
Dražen comes to Nyéléni to share how SSE can be practically connected to food sovereignty and agroecology.
Listen to the conversation with Dražen Šimleša: Solidarity economy isn’t a dream, it’s already happening, published on the official forum page of Nyéléni
