In November 2011 Italy was on the brink of oblivion with bond markets set to send it tumbling into insolvency. Government and regulators were asked to act incisively and responsibly to re-establish the confidence of financial markets in the country. High volatility made it difficult to make even short-time financial forecasts. One month later Italy’s […]
Maltese islands haven for restoration and conservation coop
For a team of art lovers, the restoration work at hand becomes a source of major satisfaction. One starts off with a filthy wall with dirt and surface damage which as it is being documented, studied and conserved finds its way back to its strengthened and uncovered original splendor, explains Agatha Grima, director of the […]
ReCoop – The Restoration and Conservation Cooperative LTD
ReCoop is a fully recognised cooperative made up of professional individuals offering conservation, restoration, art historical, monitoring and consultancy services to the private and public sector, both locally and abroad.
Health Is More Than a Prescription
The streets surrounding the Coomsocial basic-care health clinics bustle with activity: buses and taxies pull up to curbs, trucks deliver supplies, merchants sell to throngs of customers. The clinics are a hub of all this activity. Taxi drivers, bus companies, food vendors, medical suppliers, and many other small businesses depend on the traffic of patients […]
COOPERATIVA MEDICA SOCIAL COOMSOCIAL IPS CTA
With nineteen years of institutional life under the model of an Associated Work Cooperative (CTA in Spanish), we act as a Health Services Provider (IPS in Spanish) institution in Colombia. To date, we have generated 150 dignified, stable, sustainable, and justly remunerated jobs to 150 individuals, and provide health services to 53,0000 Colombians that have […]
A story of one man’s cooperation
Paulino Imede has witnessed the coming, going and coming again of the cooperative movement in Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries. Niassa province, tucked in the north east of the slender slice of African nation which rests on the Indian Ocean in south-eastern Africa, is the former Portugese colony’s poorest province. Imede was one […]
Revival of direct trade between producer and consumer: sanchoku
Sanchoku is translated as the direct transaction from producer to consumer. It is one of the forms of business being championed by Japanese consumer co-operatives as a way of lifting the quality of food and the quality of care given to plants and animals. Sanchoku is agriculture supported by the community. It ensures stable procurement. […]
COOP Jednota sets the pace in Slovakia
There is an old Slovak saying, gold without wisdom is but clay. The same saying could be said to apply to the COOP Jednota, Slovakias largest domestic retail chain. Through the control and oversight of its member base it has been able to expand through a growth strategy implemented in 1990 and followed through with […]
Supporting rural communities with more than finance – Gromada Credit Union Ukraine
Gromada Credit Union was the first agricultural credit cooperative Oikocredit financed in Ukraine. In 1996, four women started the cooperative with the aim of providing small consumer and trade loans to market traders. Unable to approach traditional banks, farmers also began to turn to the women for support with their agricultural projects. Today, the cooperative […]
The Amazon’s Unexpected Chocolatiers
The indigenous Kichwa live deep in Ecuadors Amazonian rainforest, a region whose particular climate and geology conditions are ideal for growing cacao, especially the rare Cacao Nacional variety, prized for its floral, fruity, black peppery flavor. But for years, the beans fetched meager prices about 20 cents a pound as the Kichwa sold their harvest […]