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Catalyzing worker co-ops & the solidarity economy

Canada

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January 4, 2024

Stitching a Co-operative Future in Victoria, BC

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Summary

In the heart of Victoria, British Columbia, a remarkable transformation story has been threaded by The Make House. What started as a 10-year-old sole proprietorship blossomed into a worker co-operative in December 2022.

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October 16, 2023

The Masters in Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions Program Turns 20

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Summary

The International Centre for Co-operative Management offers management education in a multi-sectoral format that brings managers from producer, worker, and consumer co-ops and credit unions. The students learn together and share their models of co-operation. The result is a dynamic and engaging educational program that creates a unique management paradigm for the co-operative enterprise model.

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October 12, 2023

Turning Up the Cooperation with Louder Than Ten

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Rachel and Travis of Vancouver's Louder Than Ten worker cooperative talk with Josh about their business and why they decided to make the conversion to a worker co-op.

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September 18, 2023

What is the Union Cooperative Initiative?

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At the June 2023 meeting of the USFWC's Union Co-ops Council, Jonny Sopotiuk presented on the Union Cooperative Initiative (UCI), an exciting project out of Vancouver, BC founded in 2021. Jonny shares about the history of the UCI, its co-ops and prospects, their strategies, and how the union co-op model is proving successful.

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September 7, 2023

The Banker Ladies Council

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Meet the Black women organizers defying anti-Blackness to build a Canadian federation of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations.

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July 3, 2023

The Co-op Food System We Need

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Shylah Wolfe spoke to Dru Oja Jay about what kinds of cooperative systems for food production, distribution and processing are already being built and how we'll probably have to expand them pretty rapidly to feed ourselves.

 

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January 23, 2023

Mountain Equipment Catastrophe

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Dru Oja Jay is joined by Kevin Harding, one of the organizers of a spirited hail-mary attempt to save Mountain Equipment Co-op from being sold off to a US private equity firm.

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December 19, 2022

Harvesting is an act of indigenous food sovereignty

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In the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, getting out in a canoe to harvest manoomin, or wild rice (Zizania palustris), is a political assertion of indigenous food sovereignty for Anishinaabe people.

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August 22, 2022

How the Ghana Susu System Helps the African Diaspora

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Canadian members of the African diaspora make use of traditional forms of group savings, known as susu, to overcome financial and cultural exclusion in the mainstream system. 

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June 20, 2022

Home Care Workers' Co-operative & Federated Care Co-op

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Summary

Conversations with a member of a home care worker co-op, and the co-author of a paper laying out possibilities for a federation structure for care sector cooperatives.