A ROSCA experiment – Alpine Community Economies Laboratory

Transformation-oriented designer Nirvik Maskey (BA, Linnaeus University) served as designer in residence at La Foresta Community Academy. During his residency, he deepened his exploration of design for socially just economies, focusing on the grassroots banking system of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs).

To foster a shared understanding of ROSCAs—both for himself and the academy’s members—he coordinated a two-month ROSCA experiment with 10 participants. Each week, members pooled and redistributed a small amount of money (€5). Though brief and modest in scale, the experiment provided everyone involved with a tangible, embodied experience of how ROSCAs function. It also sparked discussions about scaling the model into a larger, peer-to-peer system that could act as a rotating basic income.

The residency was supported by the Erasmus+ Traineeship programme and ran from September 2025 to June 2026.>/small>

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