What is Coop Academy?
Coop Academy is a #coops4dev capacity building and sharing knowledge initiative that aims at offering ICA members from all over the world the possibility to attend different training sessions. Through the different online training sessions participants will have the opportunity to develop and strengthen their skills, knowledge while improving their processes, and resources on different topics. The training topics will be strongly linked to International Development and the impactful rol of cooperative toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
What are the objectives of each Coop Academy session?
- Improve knowledge and skills
- Stimulate innovation and growth
- Strengthen interdisciplinary cooperation
- Inter-regional communication
- Further develop participants’ knowledge concerning the cooperative model and movement in relation to the SDGs and International Development
Does all the above sound interesting to you? Please find the current training schedule below:
Friday 2nd of October at 15:00 Brussels time (CEST)
The cooperative model: its contribution to the SDGs and the new economic paradigms
Participants will engage in a discussion about cooperative identity in practice; its implications for the cooperative business model, and contributions to new economic paradigms such as the circular economy, SDGs, and economy for the common good. A cooperative perspective on sustainability will be deliberated in small discussion groups.
Trainer: Sonja Novkovic
Sonja Novkovic is a Professor of Economics and Academic director of the International Centre for Co-operative Management at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada. She is Chair of the International Co-operative Alliance Research Committee, and a member of the NCBA Council of Economists.
Her research interests are in the field of economic democracy, including labor-managed and cooperative firms. Comparative systems and social economy research lead to her contributions to research on sustainability and performance indicators from the cooperative perspective. She is a collaborator on a four year research project on co-operative governance funded by FWO - Belgium. Her co-edited volumes include Co-operatives and the World of Work (Routledge, 2019); Cooperativism and Local Development in Cuba: An agenda for Democratic Transformation (Brill, 2018); and Co-operative Governance Fit to Build Resilience in the Face of Complexity (ICA, Brussels 2015).
Please note that the session will be held in English. No interpretation will be available.
Registration
Due to the nature of the training, the numbers of participants will be limited to maximum 100 people.
The participants will be selected on the principle of: First come first served.
Out of the 100 available places, 20 will be reserved for ICA staff members. The other 80 will be divided between the 4 ICA regions (20 places per region). Gender and generational aspects will always be taken into consideration.
If one region will not full fill the 20 allocated seats, the remaining ones will be equally divided among the other regions.
Please note that registrations are now closed for this session. In case you were not able to register or did not get selected, please stay tuned for the upcoming Coop Academy session! We will share the recording of the session of october 2nd on the ICA Youtube channel.
The Pay it Forward mechanism
All Coop Academy sessions will be free of charge for all the selected participants.
We are really happy to provide you with capacity building sessions that will improve your knowledge and skills on different topics. However, through Coop Academy, we would like to start a pay forward mechanism which is entirely on voluntary bases. What is the pay forward mechanism? It is a commitment from our side to provide you with quality training sessions, and from the side of the participants to help and support their local cooperatives through different methods
How can you support your local cooperatives and be part of the pay forward mechanism?
• Make a financial donation to a local cooperative
• Become a volunteer to help a cooperative and/or a cooperative project of your interest
• Become a mentor and offer your skills and knowledge to co-operators that may need it
• Any other way that you would like to support
We would really like to give visibility to those actions. Share with us what you did for you local cooperative at coopacademy@ica.coop (through for instance videos, pictures, and/or a short text) and we will share it on social media to spread the dynamic and inspire others!
Follow #CoopAcademy and #coops4dev for more updates, and do not hesitate to share your experience using those hashtags!
