I accompany from where I belong

Laura Comas

Facilitator and consultant in cooperative ecosystems.

"In a often hostile context, resilience islands must be built that are not isolated, but interconnected, weaving a root-and-sustained change ecosystem"

If I think and feel from where I come from, dissent appears as a driving thread. I bring with me the deep gratitude to the women of my family, who transformed the violence lived in force, care and empowerment.

I grew up in a small village in the Garrotxa in the 1990s, in a reality that did not match the norm. We were a family with a mother and father separated in an environment where this was uncommon. My brother and I were the only ones who wore second-hand clothes, we had recycled school books and walked around the world without being baptized. In addition, an undiagnosed dyslexia made me feel constantly out of place, as if I didn't just belong.

But that difference, over the years, became an engine. Curiosity for other realities led me to form, experiment and learn to sustain myself with autonomy. To find comfort in discomfort, to look at power closely to make it visible and bring it to the margins. And to do it, especially, from intersectional feminism and activism.

I am a person in lifelong learning and the desire to shake what seems untouchable. It feeds on the art of admiration, that space where surprise and criticism are to shake what we actually give. I am not motivated by closed spaces or static speeches. I mock on projects that live, that reinvent, that challenge the norm and host the difference without fear.

My studies have focused on social, social education, social integration and facilitation of groups. At the same time, I have deepened in social economy, solidarity and cooperativism, as well as in administrative management, providing a practical and applied vision. In addition, I have trained in areas that I consider essential: the connection with land, creativity and art as transformation tools.

My task is to observe, facilitate, connect and contribute in collective processes, accompanying them from strategy, governance and decision-making distributed. I work to consolidate and root proposals to feed, give mutual support and become part of a network capable of affecting and transforming.

Since 2018, I have been part of Resilience.Earth, where I work on strategic consultancy, facilitation and collective governance. My approach is based on facilitation of collective processes, intercooperation and the impulse of resilient structures to generate a positive and sustainable impact on the territories we inhabit.

Consolidated capacity

• Design and impulse of collective initiatives, accompanying co-creation processes until its materialization in projects such as the Artigas (2018-2021), XES Garrotxa (2018-present), FESSrural (2019-2022), the Network of Cooperative Poles of Catalonia (2022-2024) and the Observatory of Social and Solidarity Economy of Girona Lands (2023-present).

• Structuralization and governance of public-cooperative programs, facilitating management strategies and decision-making distributed in initiatives such as Fire Pegasus (2024), CercleGR (2018-2022) and the Cooperative Athenaeum Terres Gironines (2022-present).

• Co-design of specialized formations, developing programs such as La Grimpada (2019-2024) and the Specialization Cycle in Social and Solidarity Economy and Commons of the University of Girona (2022-present).

• Participation in networks and second-level structures, currently occupying governance roles as secretary of Resilience.Earth (since 2020), co-president of Núria Social (since 2024) and XES Garrotxa (since 2020), and counselor of the Federació de Cooperatives de Treball de Catalunya (since 2022) and the Ateneu Cooperatiu Terres Gironines (since 2021).

Acquired skills

Course of Good Knowledge of the Garrotxa (Fundació Estudis Superior, Olot - 2024)

Graduate Performing Arts and Social Action (Institut del Teatre, Barcelona - 2023)

Annual Group Facilitation Course (Escola Fil, Barcelona - 2020)

Postgraduate in Social and Solidarity Economy (Escola de Formació de la XES, Barcelona - 2019)

Graduate in Social Education by Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU, Donostia - 2016).

Superior Technique in Social Integration (IES Montilivi, Girona - 2011).

Technique in Administrative Management (IES Bosc de la Coma, Olot - 2008)

Publications

Comas, L (2025) and Capdevila, E. Dependency on local and shared sovereignties. Article published in Jornal.cat

Comas, L and Gussinyer, O. (2022). Live dignifiedly in the Rural World: A step for change management. In C. Escarrà (Ed.) Solidarity Economy and Ruralities – Recovering Sovereignties. Barcelona: Ed. Pol·len.

Comas, L and Danes, A (2022). Women and ruralities for home town. Article published in issue 48 of NEXE magazine, May 2022.

Comas, L (2020). The rural world as a change agent in the current systemic crisis. Article published on the website of the Ateneu Coop Camp.