On February 2nd (1:15-2:45pm Eastern) NASCO staff will present on a panel during the 50th Session of the Commission for Social Development at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The panel, titled “Youth employment through entrepreneurship: the role of cooperatives,” was organized by the Division for Social Policy and Development and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in collaboration with NASCO, the University of Massachusetts Center for Student Business, and the YES-JUMP Coop Challenge Fund.

The purpose of the panel is to highlight the potential of cooperatives to empower, employ and engage youth, and to demonstrate how young people can utilize the cooperative enterprise model to advance issues that are important for them. Panelists will have 10 minutes each to present on these topics and facilitate interactive discussion with attendees. 

The event will be webcast via http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/ and there will also be live tweets via www.Twitter.com/CoopsYear and posts via www.Facebook.com/CoopsYear. The moderator will be accepting questions and comments from both live and online audiences.

The following is just out from U.S. House Representative Chaka Fattah’s office. Congressman Fattah (D-PA) introduced bill HR 3677 with co-sponsors including Robert Brady (D-PA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and John Tierney (D-MA). 

If passed, this bill could provide assistance for cooperative enterprises across the United States. Technical assistance grants paired with low cost financing allow for projects to reach sufficient scale before external funding is removed. The successful enterprises ultimately renew the tax base and pay for themselves. Matching funding, as a built-in requirement for the grants, ensures this program is not an extension of government, but instead a partnership between Federal and Cooperative enterprises seeking to achieve common goals.

Did you miss NASCO Institute?  Watch the full presentation, Counter-Mapping for a Co-op World, by Tim Stallman and Daniel Tucker.