Books, concerts, museums, training... Since yesterday you can pay with Barcelona's digital currency, the REC, in its cultural version (50% discount) in the neighborhoods of Sants and Poble Sec. Download the REC Barcelona application On the mobile phone, we enter the personal data, password and load the euros that we want to allocate, with a relatively simple and fast operation. If we put 200 euros, the maximum, in the cultural purse, they will become 300, but in REC format (citizen economic resource). If we put 10, we will have 15 euros. The pilot test will last until February or until the 200,000 budgeted are exhausted.
There are 47 establishments that have joined, although in civic centers you still cannot pay with REC, in principle until next week, although yesterday's date had been chosen for the start-up precisely because it coincides with the opening of these entities after the holidays.
Among the establishments is the La Carbonera bookstore, in Poble Sec, where yesterday morning no one had used the digital currency yet. The bookseller Carlota Freixenet explained that they have “everything ready and waiting, but it is still very early. In initiatives of this type, the first two days are usually chaotic and then everything works fine, and the people of the neighborhood tend to turn upside down”. Will it really serve to promote cultural consumption? "You have to try, at first it doesn't seem like a bad idea," she adds.
In Sants, in another bookstore, La Inexplicable, Glòria Arquillo explained that “at the moment a boy has come to ask how it's done, but no one has bought at REC”. For her, it is a "fantastic project, and everything that serves to promote neighborhood commerce, and even more culturally, is a good initiative". The bookstore has the impression that “the team behind it has made it very easy for us, they have done some informative sessions to show us how it works”.
In addition to the establishments, information sessions have also been organized for families in vulnerable situations, since one of the peculiarities of the project is the social aspect: half of the budget allocated by the City Council (that is, 100,000 euros) is to provide to 500 vulnerable families with a check for 200 euros, with the aim of "democratizing access to culture", as the deputy mayor for Social Rights of Barcelona, Laura Pérez, already explained on the day of the presentation. That is why the design and implementation of the digital currency is carried out by the Institut per a la No Violència-Novact, “a non-profit association dedicated to the transformation of conflicts and the construction of peace. It has a line of work in the construction of alternatives, within which the REC citizen coin is framed”, explains Júlia Ponti, one of those responsible for the program. In the design process they also thought that associating the project with a virtual currency could be useful to fight against the digital divide. Yesterday in the early afternoon, even with few hours of operation, 76 REC Cultural accounts had been opened, with 1,121 euros exchanged to REC Cultural, of which 516.8 had been spent.
But starting up in a small establishment is one thing, and in larger ones it can be another. Cristopher, who works attending visitors at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, also a member of the initiative, explains that no one has tried to pay at REC there either, and that in fact, although the initiative sounds familiar to him, he has not received direct information about how he would have to manage it, beyond asking his boss. At the Fundació Miró, despite the fact that they did have it ready and explained, no one has tried to use the currency, according to Marc, from the visitor service.
In concert halls you can also use the REC, as in La Deskomunal, a cultural space and cooperative restaurant. There, however, after the Sants festivities they have paused in the programming, which will not resume for a couple of weeks and that is why they have not started the system, although they have it in hand, as explained Marion Garcia. "We see it with a good face but with caution - she adds -, the initiative seems good to us, because it is important to support the facilities of the neighborhoods". From their cooperative spirit, however, they claim that while promoting this project that we find interesting, when we make some proposals that seem necessary, they don't even listen to us”.
Catalan version, here
