A pioneer and U.S. market leader in Fair Trade since 1986, Equal Exchange is an award-winning, full service, nationwide provider of high quality organic coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa, almonds, olive oil and bananas. 100% of Equal Exchange products are fairly traded, benefiting more than 40 small farmer co-operatives in 25 countries from Mexico to India. […]
Women’s Sewing Co-op Cocoki of Kigali, Rwanda
Emelienne Nyiramana, now 37, used to fetch water for a living, walking 17 kilometers from her home in Kigali and earning 25 cents on each trip to provide for her family of six. She didnt have a bank account, and school fees and groceries for her four children were never certainties. Now, Emelienne earns more […]
Bertha’s Story: A founding members describes the power of cooperative development
“For me, its about empowerment,” explains Bertha Naranjo, full-time mother of four and full-time worker-owner and co-founder of Eco-Care Professional Housecleaning, an eco-friendly housecleaning cooperative Bertha developed with eight other women in a suburb of San Francisco, CA in 2001. The cooperative was developed with the help of WAGES, Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security, […]
Blueprint for a better world
Erik van der Veken writes, as he says, on behalf of the cooperative about the relaxed and warm environment and the benefits of an egalitarian structure. “De Wrikker is a printery, a print-shop as you like. We’re printing (offset) namecards to big posters, and a lot of magazines with a small range but a broad […]
Ecopower – renewable energy across Belgium
Cooperatives have a long history in the energy market in the 1930s, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal encouraged the formation of electric cooperatives that brought electricity to many parts of the rural United States considered unprofitable by private power companies. With today’s growing focus on clean and sustainable energy sources, renewable energy cooperatives are […]
The Fifth Season Cooperative…working together to build local food infrastructure.
The Fifth Season Cooperative is a multi-stakeholder co-op made up of producers, producer groups, food processors, distributors, and buyers from the 7 Rivers Region in the state of Wisconsin, in the U.S.A. Our members represent all of the key players in the food system at the local level. Our goal is to build a robust […]
Fifth Season Cooperative
The Fifth Season Cooperative is a multi-stakeholder cooperative made up of producers, producer groups, food processors, distributors, and buyers from the 7 Rivers Region. Our members represent all of the key players in the food system at the local level. Our goal is to build a robust regional food system that supports a healthy environment, […]
TICE, a cooperative that is also an applied research centre
We wanted to be researchers. We wanted to apply the scientific knowledge about education that was locked in our university professors’ desks. We wanted to help children, families and schools to reach their educational goals without simply “being creative” or listening to psychologists, but actually DOING something effective. After achieving the best expertise by intensive […]
TICE Cooperativa Sociale
The TICE cooperative aims to help children, families and schools to reach their educational goals without simply listening to psychologists, but actually DOING something effective. After achieving the best expertise by intensive practice in USA, the 30-something female researchers who own the cooperative decided to actively fight the brain-drain by working as pioneers in Italy. […]
Katuka Development Trust
Robusta coffee has traditionally been grown in the central region of Uganda around the Lake Victoria basin, but rudimentary, unsustainable production methods were depleting soil fertility and producing poor-quality coffee with little value on the international market. The Katuka Development Trust Ltd (KTDL), a cooperatively owned company limited by guarantee, is working to improve farmers’ […]