Just as the little ant cooperates to get the job done, cooperative members band together in an enterprise to serve all of their needs, equally. The ant as a symbol of global cooperation is the thinking behind iCooperate, a social media campaign designed to get people thinking about what it really means to cooperate and to be a cooperator.

“We need to think of ourselves as being like those ants,” said Melina Morrison, a Director of Australia’s Secretariat for the UN Coops Year. “A billion people worldwide coming together around shared activities that benefit each individual but also the community and ultimately society.”

“The ant symbol on Stories.coop was an inspiration. We wanted to get more people to share their stories of cooperation which are so inspiring and life affirming. Sharing stories encourages us to think of other avenues for cooperating to ‘build a better world’.”

iCooperate is Australia’s contribution to the International Cooperative Day 2012 global day of cooperative action. But it is a campaign that can go on and on, with people sharing stories of cooperation on stories.coop, twitter and instagram. “We really hope that people will start using the ant as a symbol of cooperation – it can become a badge of pride.”

What you do

1. Send a tweet to @iCooperate that says “I cooperate because … ”

2. Add a picture or a photo to your twitter, or if you use instagram – post your picture to @iCooperate

3. Share your story on www.stories.coop using the template that is one picture and one sentence

4. Remember to use the hash tag #coops2012 whenever you share your story on social media