The Global Conference included the Coopathon – organised by the ICA Global Youth Committee to “develop innovative co-operative solutions for global challenges”.
Participants engaged in a hackathon-style event to brainstorm ideas that promote solidarity, resilience, and sustainable development within the co-operative movement. By leveraging technology, data analytics, and social entrepreneurship, the Coopathon aimed to foster co-operation and mutual support among co-ops to address complex issues in today’s world.
The event brought together around 40 young people from different backgrounds and with different co-operative knowledge to learn from and share experiences with each other and create real-life solutions to contemporary challenges.
The idea for the Coopathon came from a conversation between Ana Aguirre, global president of the Youth Committee, and Santosh Kumar, ICA director of legislation and conference organiser.
“We decided it would make sense to have tangible outcomes from the event, and Santosh suggested board games,” said Aguirre. “We chose to look at the broader scope of what games could be and how they could be used from a co-operative and Youth Committee perspective. We brought in my co-operative (Tazebaez) to design a process and methodology to look at how we could create something out of the challenges we see in the world, or conversations we’ve had, or out of the conference itself.
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“We wanted to have deep conversations about challenges and develop solutions within a very short time. We wanted to create an experience for the people who were going to be there, but also create something that lasted beyond the event itself. Whether these solutions are going to be developed or sold commercially, that’s a question for the future.”
Over the two and a half days of the Coopathon, experienced co-operators (‘Builders’) and those new to co-operatives (‘Explorers’) discussed five themes: communications; bridge building; hierarchy, teams and management; new project development; and education.
“These were the topics in which youth have consistently found challenges at the events we have run,” said Aguirre.
“People needed to go deeper into conversations about where their struggles have been found throughout those five areas. And then each person was free to choose which kind of area mostly spoke to them, to go deeper into that … “They created personas who would use the games to solve their conflict or learn about an area. We also did a workshop on game mechanics, and the teams decided things like how many players? Is the goal to co-operate? Win? Understand? What were the subsequent goals of the game? We gave them some basic tools, and they went from there.”
An online co-op treasure hunt was created ahead of the event, which looked at co-ops more widely, then in New Delhi, six games were designed, including a version of Snakes and Ladders with co-op-related challenges or opportunities taking players up or down the board.
One was a physical maze that a blind-folded person had to navigate while asking questions, co-operating with another player outside the maze. Another created questions and conversations that triggered understanding. And a co-op jungle game where players resolved co-operative scenarios while roleplaying the characteristics of different animals, such as monkeys (the troublemaker), snakes (who were sneaky) and lions (who always attacked).
The event was received positively by participants, but, says Aguirre, there were challenges too, such as the Coopathon venue being isolated from the main event, and the programme often running over schedule.
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“It would have been good to have the workshop happening in a place that was visible. We also organised things that revolved around the schedule being followed, for example, youth meeting with participants over coffee,” she said, adding there was also frustration that there weren’t many young people integrated in the programme in itself.
“In hindsight, maybe we could have run the Coopathon before the event and then have the youth participate in the conference fully. Would that have created more connectivity among people? I also don’t know, because I think that it takes a willingness to connect with youth, and I think sometimes there’s a lack of will.”
She acknowledged that ICA events at the global level are “very formal, very plenary, very panelly, not workshoppy”.
“People come with their agendas and contacts, but there isn’t much space to interact other than at lunch. Every time I walk into an ICA event, the same people are talking to the same people, and I know that it’s a systemic thing. If we want to commit to creating new connections, then we need to rethink how events are set up – that goes for youth events too.”
Reflecting on the event, she also believes co-op enterprises, federations and apexes need to be more active in bringing young people to events like the Global Cooperative Conference, and that there is a “need to rethink how people connect to each other and communicate about youth”.
“People have told me it wasn’t clear to the international community that there was going to be a youth programme, which, honestly, I’m astonished about because it was shared online, in newsletters, with comms people. But the reality was that at the international level, we didn’t have any youth that wasn’t funded by the Youth Committee.” This, she added, has to change if we want to safeguard the future of the co-operative movement.
The Coopathon was followed by a Youth Leadership Exchange Programme trip – a Youth Committee initiative that enables young people to travel in groups to discover a new local co-operative environment while generating spaces for learning about their fellow travellers.
“Anurag [Dang, assistant director at the National Cooperative Union of India and a member of the ICA Youth Committee] put together a tremendous programme,” says Aguirre. “They went all the way up to the Himalayas, and had a full five-day co-operative programme that was fantastic. They visited all kinds of co-ops, slept in villages, and learned so much. Kudos to Gretchen [Haquard] too, who organised all the logistics for this, she did a fantastic job.”
