United Nations
New York City, New York, USA (2012)
The evening before the final day of the United Nations’ (UN) Closing Ceremonies for the International Year of Cooperatives, a globally representative group of youth spent several hours drafting a statement in a spare New York City office directly across the street from the main UN campus. What resulted was a document outlining how the current political, social, and economic context disproportionately harms youth and how cooperatives can help to address the issues youth face in that context. To that end, in the section following the Preamble, “Why Cooperatives,” is a list of things youth can gain from cooperative experience, including but not limited to: social consciousness, self-actualization, money, work ethic guided by self motivation, and skill and personal development.
The statement also outlines the challenges that the movement faces in connecting youth to cooperative experiences that can provide the identified benefits. Statement authors pointed to the knowledge gap among young people, most of whom have little to no knowledge of the cooperative model or movement, as the primary challenge. Of those youth that have some knowledge of cooperatives, many perceive cooperation as an outdated model of business for farmers or other traditional workers. Some of this knowledge gap was accounted for by an insufficient amount of accessible education about cooperation, as well as that much of the educational information that does exist represents an elder-defined cooperative worldview that differs from that of youth. Another potential reason for the cooperative knowledge gap among youth was the misappropriation of the term “cooperative” by governments around the world, particularly by those located in the Global South or by imperialist governments responsible for the colonization of those areas. These external challenges to the movement are considerable, especially when paired with intra-movement challenges. One of the key intra-movement challenges referenced was the tendency for elders to view younger people as competition, or to dismiss their ideas because they feel youth lack real commitment to or understanding of cooperative work.
In order to overcome the challenges presented, the statement puts forth the following suggestions:
- Cooperatives & Other Institutions Must Extend Themselves - to support, include, and understand young people and their needs;
- Governments & Policy Makers Need to Acknowledge Youth Explicitly - by using youth-specific language in their legislation and initiatives, by taking steps towards lessening the bureaucratic burdens placed on youth by governmental institutions;
- More Research & Statistical Standards for CoopYouth - to establish a stronger understanding of what youth need, how to engage with youth, and how to assess the success of youth in cooperatives;
- Implement Cooperative Curricula in Educational Institutions - via advocacy and resource sharing; and
- Redistribute Money From Wealthier Cooperatives - towards cooperative development initiatives for youth and other marginalized peoples.
The statement closes out its suggestions for the movement by committing to raising awareness among peer groups, taking an active role in civil society as individual youth, and promoting the strategic use of the sixth principle in order to pursue and achieve the suggested actions.
Overall, the statement maps cleanly onto sentiments echoed by both elders and youth in the Cooperative Movement, as many of the challenges (e,g, knowledge gap) and suggested actions have been topics of conversation for many years. It does not offer much in the way of criticism, beyond pointing out some of the interpersonal dynamics that have arisen between youth and elders in cooperatives that have contributed to a cultural schism in the movement. There is language clearly outlining a strategy of wealth redistribution within the movement, and given that the phrase “wealth redistribution” was not explicitly used, it suggests it came from a place of intuitive reason rather than learned ideology. Unlike most of the other existing statements, this statement was not the result of a highly intensive, large group, participatory process, rather it was the work of a select few - though geographically representative - coopyouth who had been invited by the United Nations to participate in the event.