Healthy Money Healthy Planet - library.uniteddiversity.coop

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happened – the imposition of a coloniser’s currency on a newly colonised nation,
for example, is the surest and quickest way to distort its social structures and
damage its economy.
Although complementary currencies have yet to make their appearance in
the mainstream economics literature, in official government publications, in
articles about sustainability and regional development, or even in the papers of
political parties, some universities are leading the way. In the UK, for example, the
Geography Department of the University of Leicester runs an Internet discussion
group on complementary currencies. 9
Also in the UK is the Wales Institute for Community Currencies, a
partnership project between University of Wales College Newport, Time Banks UK
and Valleys Kids (a charity working
with young people in the south Wales valleys). The project is part­funded by
European Regional Development Funds, and in the shorter term (after three years
of European funding) it aims to test out various applications of community time
banking in at least 16
of the most marginalised communities in the south Wales valleys.
In the longer term, the institute aims to test, monitor and evaluate all forms of
community currencies in the arenas of community development and social and
economic regeneration. 10
The Growth of Complementary Currencies
As we will see in the next chapter, LETS (Local Exchange/Employment and
Trading Systems) was developed in Canada in the early 1980s (although some
systems did exist in Japan in the 1970s), and from there spread rapidly around the
world. During the 1990s, other types of local currencies emerged – time dollars,