(New Book) "Gender Equality: Empowering Women and Men, and Co-ops--Stories of the Gender Journey of Co-ops in the Philippines"

In 2010-2012, 15 primary and federation-level co-ops in the Philippines took on a great challenge. By being partner-co-ops for those three years in the Project “Promoting Gender Equality Among Co-operatives in the Philippines” of the AWCF, the 15 co-ops committed to advocate, promote, and institutionalize in their co-ops the matter of “gender equality” or GE. Engaging in GE was, indeed, a great challenge for the co-ops because of many factors, such as, but not limited to:

• most of them knew little about GE before the start of the Project
• engaging in GE meant changing not only organizational mindsets but also personal mindsets—which presented wide-ranging challenges (rooted in culture and tradition) that required utmost patience and creativity for the co-ops
• promoting and integrating GE in various aspects of co-op operations also means having to answer almost inevitable questions on the socio-economic benefits that the co-op and the members will get from being gender-aware and gender-sensitive or, in short, “what’s in it for the co-op and the members?”
• engaging in GE and achieving results leads to the thinking of what then can co-ops do even more to further level up GE as an integrated and continuing concern of the co-ops? 

The book ”Gender Equality: Empowering Women and Men, and Co-ops--Stories of the Gender Journey of Co-ops in the Philippines” succinctly captures and relays to the reader the gender journey of the 15 co-ops and the milestones they have achieved in the GE Project, and how they can move even further in their gender journey. Decreased delinquency, increase in both women and men members, more products and services developed for the members, and stronger members’ households—these and more milestones were reached and continued to be achieved by the co-ops as per the set objectives of the GE Project AND even beyond those objectives, as a welcome development for all stakeholders in this Project. The 15 partner-co-ops of the GE Project were from the Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao regions of the Philippines. This book features three “representative stories” from among those co-ops, as it showcases the gender journey, so far, of Ligas Kooperatiba ng Bayan sa Pagpapaunland (LKBP), Bulacan, Luzon region; Lamac Multi-Purpose Cooperative (LKBP), Cebu, Visayas region; and Tagum Cooperative (TC), Tagum City, Mindanao region.

The inspiring stories told in the book of how these co-ops were and are able to benefit from, promote, and spread the GE advocacy will hopefully motivate even more co-ops to also take up GE in their organizations. GE is good for business, and the benefits to be gained will ultimately redound to the welfare of the members and, to a even larger extent, the community.

The other partner-co-ops of the GE Project were: Abra Diocesan Teachers and Employees Multi-purpose Cooperative (MPC); Nueva Segovia Consortium of Cooperatives; St. Martin of Tours Credit and Development Cooperative; Sacred Heart Credit Development Co-op; Don Bosco Network MPC; Cordova MPC; Dumanjug MPC; Metro Ormoc Community Cooperative; Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology MPC; Paglaum MPC; Panabo MPC; and Pantukan Chess Club Cooperative.

The GE Project was implemented by AWCF in co-operation with the Swedish Cooperative Center (SCC) and its “ACCESS to the Poor” Philippine country program, with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). Inquiries on the book ”Gender Equality: Empowering Women and Men, and Co-ops—Stories of the Gender Journey of Co-ops in the Philippines” may be directed by e-mail to awcf@coopwomen.org