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Eco123 Revista da Economia e Ecologia
We live in an era of entrepreneurship, a concept that means creating business opportunities (1). In this sense, if anyone deserves the title of entrepreneur, it is Andresa Salgueiro. She already had what most people are looking for at present: a stable, well-paid job, a house and a car, but she decided to swap everything – with the key word being “swap”.
Until recently, Andresa was a training manager in five-star hotels. But on the day her marriage ended, in part because of disagreements relating to attitudes on sustainability, she gave up everything and decided to live off 1111€ for 1 year, 11 days, 11 hours and 1 minute. Without working for money, Andresa spent part of her time in 11 sustainable communities in Portugal, from the Aldeia das Amoreiras (Alentejo) to the Ilha do Paraíso (Marvão). It was just an experiment, but isn’t it experiments that change people?
Andresa returned home, now shared with another person who pays all the expenses, and she exchanges hours of work for goods. At the train company CP, she swaps hours of work for a rail pass, in an organic supermarket, she swaps more hours of work for foodstuffs. A genuine case of “time is money”. But, as she herself says, she is not a fundamentalist, and there are cases where she uses money, although she prefers swaps. The main aim is human contact and the spirit of sharing which are fostered by such exchanges, with a reduction in consumption being a secondary effect. In parallel, she has organised a number of initiatives, ranging from workshops and shops to a book on the subject. According to Andresa, the real crisis we are living through is that of values, and for this reason she seeks to bring together the best of the past and the present, one swap at a time.
