Training for self-management and solidarity: Challenges and future prospects

The proliferation of social economy enterprises in Brazil in the last three decades led to the expansion of training schemes and the emergence of new challenges such as growing demands for qualification; disarticulation of trainers among themselves and with the workers, lack of theoretical and methodological reflection and need for intersectoral coordination. The training considers the centrality of work in the construction of knowledge and popular education as a methodology. The paper presents the research conducted in the period 2010 to 2011 about the limits and expectations of the training in the social economy in Rio Grande do Sul, considering the experiences and narratives of workers, of the support entities’ trainers and of the Training Centre in Solidarity Economy’s  (CFES) managers and participants. CFES is the first Brazilian public policy in this field, demanded by the movement of solidarity economy and executed by the National Solidarity Economy (SENAES) from the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE). The research instruments applied were observations, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and Sociopoética, an innovative method of democratic and self-management knowledge production. The results suggest that the field of training has been divided between those who have the principles of solidarity and self-managed associations in daily work and political activism and those who rely on a "fad" to access resources without adherence to the project ethical and political project through the creation of social organizations with the purpose of training in the social economy. The limits revolve around the existence of different needs and expectations among workers and trainers and the reproduction of traditional and hierarchical principles and methods. The future prospect indicate the need of the validation of the employee as subject of training and the recognition of practical knowledge from the associative work on the formative processes.