[hackerspaces] Dear hackerspaces, bad news

[Cecilia Tanaka]

Hi Florencia! :)

Do you live in Chile, doesn't you? I am from Brazil.

My country has a higher cost of life than yours, worst living conditions,
terrible taxes, no infrastructure, great poverty, corruption, etc, etc. :P

I know in person all the bad things you mentioned in your message, but our
hackerspaces - all of them - never had a paid staff. We are all volunteer
dreamers and makers.

We try to make our dreams become true without a great infrastructure,
neither lots of money. Friends trying to make real miracles with broken old
things and outdated technology, not just for fun (and it's very fun!), but
to make our world better.

We make the craziest things to pay the bills and keep the hackerspace
running:  all kinds of parties (raves, barbecues, drinks, etc), nerd
auctions, tech events, etc. Lots of hope and passion. It's too hard, but
fun! :D

Trust me, it's really great to work with friends for love and our beliefs.
We have weekly flame wars for everything (who will clean the bathroom and
repair the f***ing hole in the roof?! what the hell did happen in this
kitchen?! *#%&!!!), but all of us want the best for the hackerspace. It's
true love! ;)

Wish you good luck and lots of dreams and new ideas to save your
hackerspace! :)

Hugs from "Garoa Hacker Clube"! (with "e", in Portuguese, because we tried
to give a Brazilian identity to our space. All the others in our country do
the same! ;)

Sao Paulo - Brazil

PS: - Yep, my English stinks and I love emoticons. I know, sorry! ;)

On Mar 16, 2014 11:14 PM, "Florencia Edwards" <floev22 at gmail.com> wrote:

>> My question is, does any other makerspace have payed staff? How do you
pay them? I'd love the staff here to be volunteer but i promise in my
country people can't commit easily as volunteers because life is too
expensive, there is no time , we work from 9 or 8 am until 7 pm and
everyone is in debt. We are not a developed country, and the community of
makers that are awesome don't have a cent to donate and don't trust people.
We had a crowd funding platform in our country and it went bankrupt because
people don't believe in donations, they always feel they are being ripped
off.
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