UN declares 2012 “International Year of Co-operatives”; ICA issues message

In year-end 2010, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly declared 2012 as the “International Year of Co-operatives.” The declaration recognizes co-ops contribution to socio-economic development, poverty reduction, employment generation, and social integration, worldwide.

Meanwhile, Director-General Charles Gould of the Geneva-based International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), the world’s largest grouping of co-ops globally, announced in early April 2011 that the UN has already released the logo for the 2012 celebration. The logo and guidelines for its use are available at http://social.un.org/coopsyear/iyclogo.shtml.

According to the ICA, in order for co-ops to download and use the logo, it will be necessary to request permission from the UN by submitting the "liability waiver," which is accessed through the said site. A separate box on the request on the site requires the downloading party to indicate if it is a co-op, as distinguished from other commercial enterprises. ICA notes in its message that some of its member-organizations may find that they are best categorized as a civil society organization, which is acceptable to the request required for the logo.

Likewise in it message to co-ops, ICA also expresses its position that if its members use the UN-issued logo on any of their communications, it will be for information purposes, such as for, but not limited to, web sites, brochures, annual reports, product packages, shopping bags. If the members want to use the logo for fund-raising purposes associated with the 2012 “International Year of Co-operatives,” they should indicate this purpose in the request in the UN website.

ICA’s assistance to members on questions regarding the logo and guidelines is offered by emailing Ms Nicola Kelly, ICA's Co-ordinator for the International Year of Co-operatives, at kelly@ica.coop. Each member, however, that wishes to use the logo is expected to follow the process identified on the UN site.

Information regarding use of the logo in the official UN languages and in other languages is explained on the UN site. On questions received on the use (for the logo, graphic tag, and slogan) of the word "cooperative" with a hyphen (that is, "co-operative," as practiced in some countries and some entities), the UN has advised ICA that only one English version is permitted, that is, without the hyphen. ICA says that it will continue to seek redress on this matter, as the ICA itself and a number of its members hyphenate the word “co-operative.”

But since ICA has also pointed out that guidelines on using the word “cooperative” apply only to logo and to the graphic tag (the graphic tag is the specifically stylized version of the slogan), the slogan itself for the co-ops’ International Year (which is, "Cooperative enterprises build a better world") may be used as deemed appropriate by the members for as long that it is not in the stylized graphic

tag format. ICA states that this guideline should give co-op organizations the latitude to use the hyphenated version "Co-operative enterprises build a better world." Co-ops can also add explanatory text in some uses, such as "The United Nations has declared 2012 to be the International Year of Co-operatives." When

using the slogan or explanatory text in this fashion, ICA explains that co-ops should make certain that they follow and respect the guidelines that require a certain distance from the logo itself.

The ICA message also declares hope that co-op organizations will begin to incorporate the logo and slogan in their communications materials, so that all will be ready in time for the celebration in 2012.

The AWCF is a member of the ICA-Asia and Pacific’s Regional Women’s Committee.

AWCF attends first PAPCOM meeting for 2011

AWCF’s Ms Angelita Valdez, Program Coordinator, and Ms Aster Peñaranda, Administrative and Finance Coordinator, were present in the first meeting for 2011 of the Philippine Access Program Committee (PAPCOM) on March 22-24 held in Quezon City, Philippines. The PAPCOM meeting is regularly held to monitor and assess the progress of the “Advancing Civic Capacities for Effective and Sustainable Services for the Poor (ACCESS for the Poor)" Programme, supported from 2010-2012 by the Swedish Co-operative Centre (SCC). AWCF is among the partner-organizations of the Programme in the Philippines, as it is currently implementing a gender equality (GE) project for co-ops in the country.

The PAPCOM in March was hosted by the SCC-Philippines through its Country Director, Ms Anneli Leina.

In the meeting’s first day, the different partner-organizations of the Programme presented updates of their projects’ implementation. Ms Valdez reported to the meeting the conduct of AWCF’s 2010 activities that had included the 2011 first quarter activities. In this first quarter, she said that AWCF had carried out three capacity-building workshops, the second one in a series for gender focal persons and gender equality trainers of co-ops, and also the conduct of the second phase of the design conference for the GE training manual for co-ops.

The meeting’s second day featured a session on financial management given by the R.S. Bernaldo and Associates Auditing Firm. This firm served as the auditor for the ACCESS to the Poor Programme for 2010. Inputs and recommendations on how to better handle and record the allocations for the project budget were given in the session.

A discussion on poverty alleviation was held on the meeting’s third day. The discussion was a follow-up session on inputs provided on the first day by a representative of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), a Philippine government agency. Poverty alleviation was the theme given for this PAPCOM meeting and as requested by the Programme’s partner-organizations as a technical assistance in integrating poverty alleviation as the main theme in the different projects that they were implementing in their partnership with SCC.

The next PAPCOM meeting will be held in June, with AWCF as host.

AWCF joins celebrations for International Women’s Month 2011

In solidarity with the women of the world, AWCF celebrated this year’s “International Women’s Month” by witnessing the accolades given to Filipino women entrepreneurs, and by spearheading the design of a gender equality (GE) training manual intended for co-operatives’ use.

Go Negosyo’s entrepreneurship expo

On March 4, 2011, AWCF Executive Director Ms Salome Ganibe led representatives of the organization in attending the “Third Entrepreneurship Summit and Expo: Babae Kapuso Ka ng Bayan” (Woman, You are One in Heart with the Nation-ed.) of Go Negosyo held at the World Trade Center, Pasay City, Philippines. Organizers of the three-day event that drew more than 25,000 Filipino female and male attendees were the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship’s (PCE) Go Negosyo; GMA Network, a media outfit; and The Philippine STAR, a national newspaper. Go Negosyo (Go Business-ed.) is the advocacy of the PCE, an organization that expresses belief that Filipinos can address poverty in the country by engaging in entrepreneurship and developing an optimistic, passionate, creative and innovative, resourceful, and diligent and persevering character.

The Go Negosyo event recognized and honored 21 women as “2011 Filipino STARpreneurs” who served as role models in their particular fields or entrepreneurship levels: social enterprise or entrepreneurship enabler, small and medium enterprise (SME), and large enterprise. As co-operatives have been considered social enterprises, AWCF took note of the awardees for the social enterprise/entrepreneurship enabler category who were: Ms Vilma Santos-Recto, Governor of Batangas province; Ms Pacita Juan, founder of ECHOstore (ECHO stands for “Environment, Community, Hope Organization”), who promotes social and environmental change in the Philippines through her business; Ms Alegria Limjoco, Chief Executive Officer of Francorp Philippines, which is part of the worldwide network of Francorp International that specializes in franchise development and consulting; and Ms Ruth Callanta, President of Center for Community Transformation (CCT). (Ms Callanta was also the driving force in CCT’s Credit Cooperative, which is the recipient of AWCF’s TrIO [Transformative Individuals and Organizations] Asian Co-op Award 2007 for the organizational category.)

As success stories of these enterprising women were shared, the summit participants were not only challenged but also inspired to strive for excellence in all endeavors they choose, particularly in entrepreneurship. It was emphasized that by engaging in entrepreneurship, women can help improve the family income thereby lending a hand in alleviating poverty in the country, while serving as leaders and role models to others.

Design conference for upcoming GE manual

On March 9-11, 2011 at the Regalia Park Towers in Quezon City, Philippines, AWCF convened 15 gender focal persons (GFPs) from 15 co-ops around the Philippines to help design a training manual that can help promote GE in co-operatives. The 15 co-ops are participants in the “Promoting Gender Equality Among Co-operatives in the Philippines Project” under the “Advancing Civic Capacities for Effective and Sustainable Services to the Poor (ACCESS to the Poor) Programme” (2010-2012), supported by the Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC), with fund support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). In this design conference for the GE manual, the GFPs shared and exchanged information among themselves their GE training materials and modules, training designs, session designs, and audio-visual presentations (AVPs). AWCF will include these materials of the co-ops in the GE manual that it will develop to hopefully enrich the co-op sector’s resource materials on GE, particularly for the use of GFPs, gender advocates, and trainers.

AWCF attends two milestone activities at SHCDC

AWCF joined Sacred Heart Credit and Development Cooperative (SHCDC) in two milestones that it celebrated for the first quarter of 2011. On February 23, SHCDC observed the blessing and inauguration of its newly renovated main office located in San Rafael, Bulacan province, Philippines. Then on March 26, the Co-op held its General Assembly (GA) in San Rafael. SHCDC is considered by AWCF as one of the Philippine co-ops promoting gender equality in the country.

Ms Aster Peñaranda, AWCF Administrative and Finance Coordinator, led the AWCF group that joined other organizations in showing support to SHCDC when it inaugurated its much improved main office as well as its newest service, the Bayad Center (a payment center). SHCDC’s guest of honor in its event was Representative Jose Ping-ay of the Coop-NATCCO Partylist. SHCDC is one of the co-op members of Coop-NATCCO that sits in the current Philippine Congress.

Meanwhile, on SHCDC’s GA, the AWCF shared gender equality (GE) concepts to the SHCDC members. The AWCF party led by Ms Maria Theresa Saliendra, AWCF Project Assistant, also informed Co-op members of the background and current activities of the AWCF-Swedish Cooperative Center (SCC) partnership project on GE wherein SHCDC is among the Philippine co-ops taking part.

AWCF moves offices

After two decades of holding office in Project 4, Quezon City, Philippines, the AWCF Secretariat moved offices to nearby Cubao, Quezon City at the onset of year 2011. Rev. Fr. Roger Enaje of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish located also in Cubao officiated the office blessing on February 18, 2011. The short program and get-together that followed the blessing

enabled some networking among AWCF’s guests from co-ops and funding agencies. Guests included Ms Lecira Juarez, immediate past Chairperson of the Philippine government’s Coope

rative Development Authority (CDA); management and staff of the National Confederation of Cooperatives (NATCCO) (AWCF’s member in the Philippines) led by Chief Operating Officer Mr. Raul Calayan Jr.; management and staff of Ligas Kooperatiba ng

Bayan sa Pagpapaunlad (LKBP), Sacred Heart Credit and Development Cooperative (SHCDC), and St. Martin of Tours Credit and Development Cooperative (SMTCDC); Ms Anneli Leina, Country Director of the Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC)-Philippines and Mr. Michel Pierre Bergeron, consultant of the Desjardins Development International (DID); AWCF consultant Ms Brenda Batistiana; and service providers of AWCF in travel, transport, and

insurance.

AWCF Secretarial plans for 2011

The AWCF Secretariat went up to northern Philippines on February 8-10, 2011 to conduct its planning-meeting for year 2011. Also in attendance at the meeting held at the Microtel Inn & Suites, Baguio City, were Ms Pakialakshmi d/o Maniam and Ms Janjila Nuansri, participants assigned to the Philippines under the AWCF-Fredskorpset (FK) Norway exchange program partnership project being implemented since 2008; and Ms Merlene Flores, an AWCF consultant. The meeting included a review of AWCF’s outputs for 2010, and the planning of activities or actions to be conducted by AWCF for January to December 2011. AWCF Executive Director Ms Salome Ganibe led the conduct of the planning-meeting.

AWCF trains more GE trainers

A series of capacity-building activities to develop gender equality (GE) advocates in the Philippine co-op sector is among the components of the partnership between AWCF and the Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC), which is the “Promoting Gender Equality Among Co-operatives in the Philippines" Project. This Project is under the “Advancing Civic Capacities for Effective and Sustainable Services to the Poor (ACCESS to the Poor)" Programme (2010-2012), supported by the Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC), with fund support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). In October 2010, in Cebu, Philippines, AWCF conducted the first capacity-building workshop for gender focal persons (GFPs) and GE trainers of the 15 Philippine co-op partners of the Project. The workshop was held per region (Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao), and the participants in the first workshop were the ones who decided on the dates of the next workshop. Thus from January to February 2011, AWCF conducted the second capacity-building workshop for GFPs and GE trainers of the 15 co-ops.

The workshop for Luzon co-ops was held January 17-21 in Hotel Supreme, Baguio City; for Mindanao co-ops on January 24-28 in Hostel MASS-SPECC, Cagayan de Oro City; and for Visayas co-ops on February 23-27 in WRegent Plaza Hotel, Tagbilaran City.

The workshop series had a total of 83 GE trainers and GFPs participants: 28 from Luzon—15 male (53.57%) and 13 female (46.43%); 28 from Visayas—9 male (32.14%) and 19 female (67.86%); and 27 from Mindanao—8 male (29.63%) and 19 female (70.37%). Among the GE role models invited to the workshop were Ms Norma Pereyras from Tagum Cooperative and Ms Emma Nieva from MSU-IIT Multipurpose Cooperative.

Workshop sessions

Inputs on “Adult Learning,” “Learning Methodologies,” “How to Become a Good Trainer,” and “Planning and Designing a Training Program” were given by Ms Merlene Flores, an AWCF consultant.

The session on storytelling, handled by Ms Salome Ganibe, emphasized this method as an advocacy and training tool whereby participants were trained on live storytelling, the use of gestures and facial expressions, and intonation. They were also taught to write and develop stories that they later presented to the other participants in a plenary.

The session on audio-visual presentation (AVP) production using the Photostory 3 software was led by Ms Evelyn Villaflor for Luzon group, Ms Annalyn Salvaleon for the Mindanao group, and Ms Maria Theresa Saliendra for the Visayas group. The participants were asked to produce a two-to-three minute AVPs on the different gender issues of marginalization, stereotyping, violence, subordination, and multiple burden. Their AVPs were viewed in a session afterwards, and the participants critiqued their fellow participants’ outputs, together with the resource persons. It was agreed on that the AVPs will be further enhanced, and a compilation of the different outputs will be done for use of the GE trainers in the 15 co-ops.

More workshop outputs

The participants also drafted their co-ops’ training program for 2011 and their training designs. The outputs were actually improved versions of the training designs they had developed in their first capacity-building workshop.

In the training designs, the participants inputted their planned sessions, including the activities, concepts to be discussed, the duration of the sessions, among other components. They were asked to demonstrate particular sessions during the workshop, and fellow participants and the resource persons likewise critiqued the sessions for further improvement.

AWCF also introduced to the participants the use of the perception meter and the freedom wall. The perception meter was a table or chart of different emotions that the participants were to put a check mark on, depending on what they felt on a particular day of the workshop. The freedom wall encouraged participants to write whatever they wanted to, as related to the workshop.

A study tour on the workshop’s last day brought the participants to organic farms, o-ops, fair trade and organic product shops where they were learned about co-ops’ good practices. Talks were also given to them by the co-op leaders and managers of the visited shops.

The AWCF capacity-building workshop was managed by Ms Angelita Valdez, supported by Mr. Ranie Catimbang and other AWCF staff.

Comic Book--Gender Equality in Co-ops: Win na Win for Family and Business

Message from the Asian Women in Co-operative Development Forum (AWCF): Among the vital issues that confront women and men in the household, community, and workplace are gender equality (GE) issues, which include marginalization, subordination, gender stereotyping, multiple burden, different forms of violence, and similar situations. GE issues may also be present in the co-ops because people and relationships are at the very core of these organizations. The challenge for co-ops in the Philippines, where half or more than half of the membership are women, is to be gender-equal co-ops that will enable women and men to have equal rights, benefits, opportunities for advancement, services, and access to and control over resources; and equal roles to play in development as participants and as leaders. Co-ops as a business organization with social objectives can also expect good returns because being a gender-equal co-op is also good for the business. When the members grow economically and socially, so do the co-ops.

This comic book “Gender Equality in Co-ops: Win na Win for Family and Business” presents the story of Chona and Mike who overcame their marital, economic, and social problems, including GE issues, in and through the help of their co-op. The story’s characters are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. But the situations to be resolved in this story do happen in real life and to a number of co-op members who have similar or almost similar experiences in relationships, and also economic and social issues. And like Chona and Mike, these co-op members resolve their problems with great help from their co-ops. Their co-ops that have become champions of co-operativism and GE.

Published and distributed by the Asian Women in Co-operative Development Forum (AWCF), a resource center and advocacy body on gender and co-ops in Asia.

AWCF
Email: awcf@coopwomen.org Website: coopwomen.org YouTube: awcf gender forum

Published December 2010 for the “Promoting Gender Equality Among Co-operatives in the Philippines" Project under the "Advancing Civic Capacities for Effective and Sustainable Services to the Poor (ACCESS to the Poor)" Programme (2010-2012), supported by the Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC), with fund support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

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