TOPIC 21- STAGE 1-MACRO In spite of the fact that youth have been present from the beginning of cooperativism (27 out of the 28 Rochdale pioneers were less than 30 years old when they founded the cooperative), and their participation has been considered at all times, the interest of cooperatives in young people increased noticeably in the late 20th and early 21st century.
The International Co-operative Alliance congress in Hamburg (1984) adopted a resolution promoting the celebration of the World Conference of Young Co-operators in Warsaw (1985), entitled “Participation-Development-Peace: Youth and the Cooperative Idea in a Changing World”, and subsequently, while the International Co-operative Alliance Congress was being held in Manchester in 1995, the Third International Youth Seminar was also held at the Cooperative College at Stanford Hall with the theme “Young People Co-operation and the Media”.
As a result of the importance that cooperativism attaches to young people, the Alliance has had a youth representative on the Board of Directors since 2003, and on the eve of the celebration of the International Year of Cooperatives (2012), which encouraged youth participation in an attempt to promote cooperative values and principles, the 89th International Co-operative Day, on 2 July 2011, featured the theme "Youth, the future of cooperative enterprises”.
The Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade by 2020 aims to position the cooperative business model as “builders of economic, social and environmental sustainability”, “the preferred model” and the “type of fastest growing business organisation". It also includes references to the importance of young people: young people should take part in the development of cooperative identity and its dissemination, as well as in the design of future cooperativism, all in keeping with the reality that shows how young people are operating cooperatives worldwide and how, in general, they bring together the values inherent in youth and cooperative values.
Cooperativism should focus on three aspects aimed at youth: i) communication, as highlighted by the International Co-operative Alliance in its Statement on Cooperative Identity, whose fifth principle states that cooperatives “inform the general public, particularly young people and opinion leaders, about the nature and benefits of cooperation". ii) training, which enables access to knowledge, awareness and action. Cooperative training, as a field of self-expression, leadership and democracy, facilitates individuals’ involvement in the organisation and accountability;iii) actual participation. The aim is to facilitate youth access to existing cooperatives as an opportunity to launch a new cooperative.
