Youth Co-operative Action Heads to the Philippines

At the end of June we headed (virtually!) to the Philippines, delivering our Youth Social Action Hackathon to young people aged between 20 and 35 from CLIMBS Co-operative Insurers in the Philippines.

Working in partnership with International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF) it was the first time we'd hosted an online interactive Hackathon, so we were all excited to see how it would develop. Daniel Cox, our project co-ordinator, was the key facilitator and guided the session with confidence and flare, with over 30 young people participating.

The session

The session placed co-operative values and principles right at its core and was exclusively designed for young co-operative leaders. It focused on providing them with an opportunity to gain an understanding of how they could use co-operation and co-operative values for social action. Together, they explored how to incorporate social action into organizations and their own lives, and how to use this knowledge to address key issues within their communities.

Through working together and utilising the social action process, the group identified two key issues that they wanted to tackle in their community:

• Poverty
• Access to universal education

“The Youth Social Action was an amazing session and a brilliant example of co-operation and innovation in a time of crisis. It was a privilege to work with CLIMBS in their first official online youth session of this kind, and to meet with some of the young leaders in the Philippines. To hear their thoughts and ideas for progressive change was engaging and inspiring, and I know will lead to the beginnings of positive, lasting social action in their communities.

The current global pandemic has created many new issues and exacerbated many other existing problems in our societies. Coming together in the co-operative way to overcome these issues is powerful, inclusive and pragmatic. I truly believe that great things happen when people cooperate!'”

Daniel Cox, Project Co-ordinator, The Co-operative College

Following the success of the event, we look forward to running many more sessions like this with young people from across the Philippines and beyond!

Keen to hear more about our work with young people and explore how the social action process could work for you and your community? Get in touch with our projects team for a chat on how co-operative education can help you.

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