The Ruptors is a street dance crew formed in 2008 by students at Lipson Community College, a co-operative school in Plymouth, Devon, south west England, and run as a Young Co-operative as part of the Co-operative Colleges Young Co-operatives scheme. The crew consists of eight students ranging from years 10-12. Since 2008 the Ruptors has […]
The Foster Care Co-operative
Foster Care Co-operative(FCC) is a not-for-distributed-profit Foster Care Agency, based in Malvern, Worcestershire, with regional offices in Cardiff, Bristol and Glasgow. The Co-operative provides an ethical and efficient model of spending public money, on an extremely vulnerable group in Society. Set up in 1999 by Chairman Laurie Gregory, FCC provides an alternative to commercially independent […]
A society of shoemakers expands
Romania has a long history of co-operation. Indeed, the first producer and service cooperative The Society of Shoemakers was founded in Bucharest in 1879. And, Romania can also lay claim to being one of the founders of the International Co-operative Alliance. Nearly two decades after the Society of Shoemakers was founded, Dimitrie C. […]
Oxfam partners with Armenian coops
Armenias mountainous expanses are home to many historical treasures, including the first church in the world to be built by the state. Indeed Armenia was the first country to recognise Christianity. It has, and has retained, its own unique alphabet. For all its ancient and historical treasures, this Eastern European nation has a high altitude […]
Villagers from distant settlements always happy to see cooperative shop-vans
During winter about 10 retirees live in the settlement of Nikolskoe (Bryansk Region). The streets are empty; there is no reason to come here, maybe only to get water. But twice a week the settlement comes to life on Tuesday and Friday when the mobile shop-van of the Zhilyatinski Consumer Society arrives. Early in […]
Cooperative football network grows in Africa
Football, association football, or soccer? Call it what you like, it is the world’s most popular sport. And, unpublicised though it is, the worlds best football club in 2012, FC Barcelona, is a member or socio owned club run on cooperative principles. The cooperative model works at the top end of the sport. And a […]
Bringing home the bacon
Viewing an interactive map of the 125-year history of pig slaughtering in Denmark is reminiscent of watching wildfire spread in a raging wind. Pig slaughtering has become big business in Denmark. At the centre of this big business which began in the cooperative slaughterhouses of Horsens in Denmarks centre is the 125-year-old Danish Crown. Today […]
Reconciling interests to make big business
The wine trellises fill the fertile valley floor of Rotaliana. It is often described as the most beautiful wine garden in Europe. Striking for its modernity in this region of Trentino, northern Italy, rich with Roman ruins and medieval buildings, is a steel-enmeshed three story office block with a low-lying grass roofed tasting building. This […]
GRUPPO MEZZACORONA
Gruppo Mezzacorona arose from the merger of the Cantina Sociale (founded in 1904) and the Lega fra Viticoltori (founded in 1911) in 1970, the first merger of two cooperatives in Italy. The group now manages 2800 hectares of vineyard in the Italian region Trentino Alto Adige and an additional 1000 hectares in Sicily. Mezzacorona operates […]
Micro-loans help recovery in Uganda
He who has never had a sorrow cannot speak words of comfort. Ugandan proverb Uganda may be referred to by travel agents as the Pearl of Africa but twenty one years of civil war has done little to enhance the living conditions of Ugandans. This is particularly obvious in the country’s north where 1.9 million […]