Soft collaboration

INTI (Instituto Nacional de Technologia Industrial) , a federal Government institution here in Buenos Aires, has some very intriguing functions. I would have imagined that it might be able to help us identify the location of a hotpress or advise us on other technical matters but in fact we stumbled across Hector Gonzalez at the Workers Economy conference and finally went to see him today. His job involves coordinating research which supports the local cooperatives. Whatever comes in – they try to farm out to various of their departments. These are social, economic and technical issues. Instead of being greeted with a discouraging what-can-we-do-for-you smile – we were invited to meet others from architecture and construction. They had already downloaded our blog and were ready and willing to collaborate and help in any way they could. Our mission to help cartoneros seek extra income was also theirs it seemed. We have now found quite a few left leaning Government employees all of whom are a little nervous about incoming city Governments and the changes they will make. We were offered assistance to find the standards which will make our materials legal in buildings and in furniture, help in locating a hotpress or personnel to make one, the names of recovered factories who might make the press and finally offers of ‘soft’ collaboration.