Part Two: Youth Developing Co-operatives

In the co-operative world, few things are as important as the ways in which groups perceive and then pursue opportunities for co-operative enterprise. The following case studies illustrate some of the ways in which young people in different parts of the world are engaging in co-operative activities: what has been important to them, how they have taken advantage of opportunities, and what they have accomplished.

The co-operation revealed in what follows takes place on different levels. Some of it emerges out of traditional co-operation as practised in families and communities for generations, if not for ages. Some of it is spontaneous, the result of people coming together to do something to contend with various issues in their communities and societies, an instinctive activity that has always characterized human adaptation – at least as much as the more widely publicized competitive tendencies. Some is structured within formal co-operative organisation as defined by statutes and regulated by governments – the kind of co-operative activity that the organized international co-operative movement particularly appreciates.

All of the cases, though, demonstrate a strong determination to employ the co-operative model to meet important needs, perhaps most commonly, to find employment and empowerment in circumstances where doing so is difficult. They also show the pride youthful members take in what they build, in their roles as pioneers in the places in which they live, and as participants within a global co-operative impulse that can particularly embrace young people.