It's all free!
AREALLY free market started in 2011 is now going full steam at the Rizal Park in Davao City, whenever its organizers and members have gathered enough for people to pick from.
The idea: to celebrate gift economy.
The Really Really Free Market (RRFM) started at the Kinaiyahan Unahon Alternative Center, a community space in Tigatto, Buhangin District in 2011.
Organizers who prefer to just be known as the “Organic Minds” as well as supporters have been bringing over whatever extras they have for anyone to pick from.
RRFM, after all, is a leaderless movement that is all about giving what you can and taking only what you need. No need to
swap, no need to trade.
The idea was appreciated and so RRFM moved downtown where more people are. There are no fixed schedules, however. Hinged on pure volunteerism, the group decides to hold the free market when their schedules jive and there are enough items and services to be offered.
The RRFM movement simultaneously originated in Miami, Florida, and Raleigh, North Carolina during the anti-globalization protests against the FTAA in 2003. It is a horizontally organized collective of individuals who form a temporary market based on an alternative gift economy.
In this way, an alternative is presented as against just attacking capitalism.
The major goal of the movement is to build a community-based sharing of resources, where people care for one another and help improve the collective lives of all.
Participants bring unneeded items and food, as well as skills and talents such as entertainment or services.
In the RRFM last July 24, aside from the clothes and footwear on display, a nursing student gave out free blood pressure reading while a group of musicians gave free entertainment.
In all other areas where the RRFM movement has taken root, the activity takes place in an open community space where people converge.
In Davao City, it has been gathering more and more volunteers as they not only see the attributes of a gift economy, but also realize that by sharing, issues about overproduction, mindless consumerism, climate change, environmental pollutions, sweat shop exploitation, and other kinds of crises brought about by capitalism are addressed.