“It’s all about the money!”: Challenges and tensions in the institutionalization of a community-based collective

A Catalyst for Change: The extraordinary Anaka Women’s Collective during the June 2026 Belfast Pogrom

Prompted by the pogrom that erupted in Belfast in June this year, this article explores how a women’s collective, Anaka, established by female asylum seekers, refugees and migrants (ASRMs) less than a decade previously, took the lead in ensuring the safety and welfare of the city’s migrant communities in a context where they were horrifically failed by police and politicians, by the state and the institutions meant to protect them. Anaka began as a small-scale endeavour to mitigate the difficulties confronting women struggling to navigate a harsh asylum system. It became a widely respected advocacy and campaigning group for ASRMs. Anaka built a network of alliances throughout the city, winning trust and respect everywhere. A previous Social Encounters’ article argued that: ‘Of service to its own and the wider community, the ways in which Anaka promotes integration provides a powerful model of community cohesion and unity that contains the potential significantly to ameliorate traditional sectarian divides and reduce racism, building a better Belfast for all’ (Kirby,2024). The present article illustrates the prescience of those words

“Together We Lift, The Stronger We Become”: The Role of Women’s Self-Help Groups in Building Trust and Community Solidarity in Wa Metropolis

Brazil's Brand of Regionalization: The Rise and the Demise of the South American Alliance

Global Governance with its adherent institutional frame is perplexed by what Gramsci might refer to as “discursive conflict” between the established capitalist core and other nations that advocate divergent values and goals. The regionalist turn in the emergent powers reflects this group's growing disillusionment with the established status quo. Their regionalism amounts to neither a complete retreat from global governance nor a declaration of war on liberal premises upon which global institutions sit. Instead, the objective is to craft new institutions to manage some of the key issues in accordance with their own norms and priorities, critically, with those neighbors who share their perception. As such, Brazil engineered Mercosur and Unasur to secure its economic development within a peaceful South American interstate order. After a promising headstart, this emergent power strategy quickly ran into the systemic constraints of being a latecomer to the game of capitalist development. Reading Brazil's regionalism through Hirschman's “voting with the feet” concept, this study employs a single‐case process‐tracing design anchored in the institutional evolution of Mercosur and Unasur, with intra‐regional trade volumes and presidential discourse providing the principal empirical material.

Research on the Transformation Path of Social Organizations under the Two-Way Empowerment Mechanism: A Practical Analysis Based on the K Social Work Center

Against the backdrop of local fiscal austerity, social organizations that are overly reliant on government procurement of services are facing a systemic survival crisis. Data shows that as of the end of 2023, the total number of social organizations in China had dropped to 881,600, a decrease of 9,700 from the previous year, representing a growth rate of -1.09%. This change not only exposes the industry's deep dependence on policy resources but also reflects the state's underlying intention to drive social organizations from quantitative expansion towards qualitative improvement. Through a case study of the K Social Work Center, this research finds that the key for social organizations to break free from resource constraints lies in leveraging the dual forces of government institutional guidance and market value orientation to build a sustainable ecosystem characterized by "compliance as a foundation, professional breakthrough, value feedback, and efficiency enhancement." Specifically, by implementing a "dual-end optimization" strategy—on one hand, adhering to the government end to solidify regulatory baseline, and on the other hand, expanding the market end to activate self-sustaining capabilities—the organization has successfully driven a triple transformation in governance modernization, service productization, and diversified self-financing capacity. This pathway ultimately facilitates a role shift from a passive policy-dependent entity to an active value co-creator in social governance.

International Journal of Community Currency Research

Sustaining Co-operatives: The Role of Board Members and Local Governance in Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City

In Nepal, co-operatives have evolved from being just financial entities to becoming lifelines of communities striving for inclusive growth and economic resilience. They especially help people in places such as Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City to come together, pool resources, generate employment and empower women and marginalized groups. But these co-operatives are not easy to keep going. In this study we examine the real dynamics that underpin the sustainability of co-operatives, with particular attention to the roles of board members and local governance. The research is based on in-depth interviews and group discussions with ten selected co-operatives of Butwal. It shows that good leadership, ethical leadership, and supportive policies from local government, make a big difference. When board members are trained, transparent and inclusive, they build trust and ensure stability. Likewise, when local governments actively partner with co-operatives, they help to magnify impact. But poor communication, inadequate training and political interference often get in the way. This suggests investment in leadership development and the formation of genuine partnerships between co-operatives and municipalities can greatly boost the survival and success of these grassroots organizations.