It's Co-op Fortnight and the theme this year is #CoopHeroes.
This Co-op Fortnight is particularly special as it falls in the UN International Year of Co-operatives 2025, so we asked our Babs to put pen to paper, or more accurately fingers to keyboard, and give us a few words on the subject.
Aside from being one of our longest serving members and a warehouser here at Greencity, Babs is also a workers.coop international representative and sits on the Board of CECOP and CICOPA.
With such a huge personal commitment to the movement, we figured this makes Babs a lot of a #coophero so who better to ask!
On a busy day in the Greencity warehouse with a flurry of deliveries and a mountain of picking tickets, it’s sometimes easy to forget, that as a co-operative business, we are part of a global family working for people and planet. International solidarity is part of our DNA.
Co-ops employ 280 million people across the world – 10% of the world’s population – and we have been very lucky to welcome some of them to Glasgow’s gritty East End through the years. Highlights include nut growers from Bolivia (Equal Exchange), cocoa producers from Ghana (Divine Chocolate) and olive farmers from Palestine (Zaytoun) through our Fairtrade supply chain.
We have had visits also from Mondragon, the world’s largest industrial co-operative network based in the Basque region of Spain, as well as a group of young co-operators from South Korea. More recently as members of workers.coop we have financially assisted Yalla digital co-op (Gaza / London / Berlin) and continue to platform campaigns such as Water 4 Rojava via SEA (Solidarity Economy Association). Learning from and supporting such partners is an enriching experience that grounds the daily grind in a deeper and more meaningful reality of social and environmental justice.
2025, as a specially designated UN International Year of Co-ops, provides us with a golden opportunity to further champion co-operative alternatives to capitalism’s exploitative and destructive tendencies, whilst wondering if the UK Government will deliver on its commitment to double the size of the co-operative sector.
Co-ops UK hold their annual Congress in Rochdale this year in honour of the humble beginnings that spawned a global movement (thank you Rochdale Pioneers!) and to mark their 180th anniversary have launched the Fund for International Co-operative Development (FICD) the first of its kind, to provide financial support and expertise to co-operatives globally, rebuild after crises, foster peace and create resilient and sustainable economies, peer to peer.
In my capacity as workers.coop international representative (a wee side-hustle) I sit on the Board of CECOP (The European Confederation of Industrial and Service Co-ops) and CICOPA, it’s international equivalent.
Whilst there is a bureaucratic nature to our meetings due to the meta-level of the organisations, I remain continually inspired through learning about thriving co-operative models in other countries, particularly in Spain and Italy where social care and off-shoot industries such as catering and cleaning are all under the co-operative umbrella. La lucha continua !
- Babs Nicgriogair, Greencity Member & Warehouser
