Saturday, November 6 | 2:45 pm - 6:00 pm [15 minute break @ 4:15 pm]
These three-hour workshops will run through course blocks two & three.
2312. Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (CoFed): A Cooperative Groundswell Through the Campus Food Movements
Yoni Landau
Imagine a campus storefront where you can buy a sustainable $5 sandwich and also support the movement towards a cooperative society. Now imagine a growing network of these models based on best-practices research, shared infrastructure and revolutionary leadership training. Right now, across the West Coast, student leaders are launching worker-managed cooperative food businesses and electrifying their campus food movements. The Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (CoFed) empowers teams of students across the US and Canada to create financially viable campus hubs for food and cooperative activism.
This workshop will be an energetic, participatory experience that will provide a background on CoFed as well hands-on tools for organizing cooperative businesses on your campus.
2333. "Choose Your Own Adventure" Community Cartography from West Philly and Beyond
Esteban Kelly
You've decided to attend an awesome workshop and delve into your own interactive adventure! As you arrive, the Philly-based facilitators explain that you will be looking holistically at the idea of "the commons" and "the solidarity economy" on a neighborhood-wide scale. Someone hands you a wad of local currency and a map of the room. As you study the map, you realize that it illustrates various stations that are set up around the room, representing a few different industries. Most participants will be assigned a co-op or solidarity-based business but YOU'VE arrived early so you can CHOOSE to go to a) the Philly Credit Union, b) Mariposa Food Co-op, c) the Mill Creek Farm, or d) the Life Center Housing & Land Trust. You've made an excellent choice! As you navigate your way to your chosen enterprise another facilitator hands you a set of objectives for the first part of the workshop. Your first workshop objective is to create or expand community ownership- but beware, the facilitators will also play the role of city government, capitalist investors, and gentrifiers! Everyone in your group has a list of instructions and the workshop's three main resources: the menu of mini-trainings offered by the facilitators (you may only select a few), the wad of local currency in your hand, and the assets of your business which you can barter, partner, buy, sell and trade with the other intrepid adventurers in this dynamic workshop! Toward the end of the session, you get to make a map of the local resources in your home town, and discuss how those entities could be leveraged to change your own neighborhood.
2342. Building White Anti-Racist Praxis
Lydia Pelot-Hobbs
In this workshop we will talk about the ways white folks can build together in accountable ways for racial justice. Assuming participants are already working for anti-racism in their communities, we will interrogate the ways white supremacy and other systems of oppression continue to inform our anti-racist work and work to build collective analysis and responses that challenge these systems. Special emphasis will be on the relationship of empire, borders, and land theft to white supremacy and the possibilities of building a white anti-racist praxis committed to broader movements for immigration and land justice.
2343. Mad Maps and Other Tools for Building Peer Mental Health Support in Co-ops
Angel Adehoya
How can we create co-ops that support our mental and emotional health? How do privilege, oppression and collective liberation relate to radical mental health? The Icarus Project recognizes the multiplicities of mental health experience and strives to create a community that regards the range of diversity as something to be respected and even rejoiced in.
In this workshop, we will explore ways to promote safer spaces in our co-ops. We'll discuss the importance of sharing our personal stories, giving and receiving support, and building communities that are truly welcoming to all marginalized people. Using exercises like "Mad-Mapping" and skill-sharing, we'll collaboratively envision structures for mental and emotional support, and dialogue about why such strategies are vital to collective liberation.
2362. Educate to Cooperate: Building Our Coop Education and Training Programs
kiran nigam
The fifth coop principle states that coops provide education, training and information for our members and the public. In housing cooperatives, this is especially important. Effective member education can transform co-ops from dysfunctional to thriving spaces.
This interactive, two-part workshop will cover the core skills involved in building a strong and effective coop education and training program to empower members, develop leaders, and grow the coop movement. Topics we will address include: developing engaging workshop agendas and curriculum, incorporating popular education techniques, facilitation skills, event planning, coordination, and promotion. The session will end with a panel of coop educators and trainers from the AORTA trainer alliance, here to answer your most challenging questions. Come with wild success stories to share and burning questions that need answering.
