a co-op you say? — Grace Stanley

A cooperative can be a confusing concept especially because it is seen in many different forms. The definition from the International Co-op Federation is, "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise".

To put this into context I will define how exactly World Dance for Humanity’s co-ops are formed and function.

The 25 co-op’s that WD4H works with are located all over Rwanda. The individuals that came together at the very beginning to form each of these co-ops first had to decide that their current state of affaires as individuals was not sufficient, they saw a better, brighter future working as a group. They then traveled to our projector coordinator Justin, in the capital city, Kigali. They came to Justin to attest that they were worthy of gaining the financial, emotional, and educational support WD4H was offering to other communities of people like them. Justin then has the responsibility to decide if these communities are prepared for and will prosper from becoming a cooperative and gaining support from WD4H.

Each of these co-ops was formed with different intentions and follows different paths of development. But each of them shares a similar beginning that is, each community member pays a small membership fee to be apart of the co-op, and by doing so gains equal benefits from the co-op. Once there is a legitimate community formed WD4H works to donate 1 goat per family to each of the member families of the co-op.

Why Goats?

It is hard for people in the developed/privileged world to understand how something as simple as a goat can be of significant value to a community

1. Most of the communities we work with are predominately agricultural communities. Some are subsistence farmers that simply live off the land that they are farming. While others farm their land to not only feed themselves but also to sell for a profit, hence the donations of farmland WD4H donates to it’s communities.

2. The other interesting part of WD4H’s donations is that a majority of them do not stop giving back to the community, unlike shoes, soccer balls, etc. Goats are beneficial because they too give back. Not only do they reproduce, they produce milk, cheese, meat, and manure. Manure that is necessary for farming in this country.

3. By donating 1 goat per family, WD4H is working to gain trust between them and the communities. This is a way of showing the co-op at the very beginning, that WD4H is with them and supports them.

3. Lastly, one of the most important parts of a donation like a goat is that it gives the family and the community a sense of worth. When you are a family that owns nothing of worth or nothing that produces worth something like a piece of livestock can provide pride that not only leads to improved outlook on life but is also a snowball effect. When you receive an asset like this you are inspired to create more positive change in your life and empowered to work harder to create this change.

Once the co-op is created and they receive their goats the co-op begins to form their business plan. This is extremely different for each community WD4H works with, and the different parts of the process can take up to years. In the past two weeks I have visited four cooperatives.

Ubehezo

Justin, our project director in Rwanda, leading the meeting

The co-op book keepers, transcribing what was talked about at the meeting

This co-op is a farming community which has received cows and goats from WD4H. A few things I didn't realize before this meeting was that the co-op leaders, once their mandate is up, are up for re-election. What's interesting about these position is that people don't campaign for it but rather are chosen by the co-op members because of their genuine ability to fill the role.

It was amazing to see how these co-op members were sitting and listening and accepting each others opinions on how to run the enterprise. There were obviously differing opinions but there was always respect and understanding and listening when it came to different ideas. These are people that previously, most likely had negative feelings of resentment and dis-trust towards each other, and were now sitting together in harmony working towards a better future together.

Cokawi

Justin teaching the co-op members about water flow and how it can be utilized to benefit crops rather than hurt them

The visit to this co-op (which is also a farming cooperative) was to talk to the members about a permagarden project that was introduced to a couple of our cooperatives last year. The training that these initial cooperatives received was run by Tom Cole a Santa Barbara local and co-author of a manual on the benefits of these permagardens and how to create them. The manual was produced by TOPS which is described in the manual as, "The Technical and Operational Performance Support (TOPS) Program is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Food for Peace-funded learning mechanism that generates, captures, disseminates, and applies the highest-quality information, knowledge, and promising practices in development food assistance programming, to ensure that more communities and households benefit from the U.S. Government’s investment in fighting global hunger. The TOPS Program empowers food security implementers and the donor community to make lasting impact for millions of the world’s most vulnerable people" (http://www.fsnnetwork.org/sites/default/files/pg-technicalmanual-mono.pdf).

This past week we have built a large permagarden at Cokawi. It was an extremely humbling experience, I will talk more about the goals and methods of the permagarden in-depth in a future post.

Abishyizehamwe

Judy, our business coordinator, checking out the oven

Judy, looking over the books of the co-ops business

Abishyizehamwe is a co-op comprised of a few hundred people. After years of planning this co-op opened a bakery with the help of donations from WD4H. It amazes me that something as simply as donations of a mixer, oven, and business training can lead to the stability of an entire community. This is not simply aid, this is development. These are people that previously would never have the ability to own their own business. These are people that previously received bread deliveries once a week because their community is so remote. Seeing the pride the co-op members had in their business, their success, and their new knowledge was inspiring.

Umunezero

Umunezero is a farming community that was initially formed by 40 women survivors of the genocide. They recieved a large parcel of land in this picturesque valley and have come together to benefit from it. The day we visited this co-op, we came with a nurse from Santa Barbara who wanted to learn how these women benefitted from owning a business together, both financially and emotionally. The testimonials we heard were incredible.

One women who offered her opinions on the benefits of a co-op said, "Reaching out to people who work together is much easier than reaching out to individuals. In the regard to giving training to people, things like orange sweet potatoes (which include essential nutrients that are lacking in Rwandans diets), beet roots (Which also include vitamins that are lacking in diets), and other farming training. Working together is very important because when those services come they first reach out to people working together as it is not as easy to reach individuals. The other benefit of working together is that we are all gifted differently, our education is different, and our skills are different, but when we bring everything together it is very easy for us to be productive. So each individual bringing her individual skill set to share with another, that brings about a very significant result, rather than working as individuals. Another benefit of working together is that each and every member of the co-op brings back a portion of the seeds from their shared farmland and plants them at their home, for their own kitchen garden, to make sure there is no malnutrition in the home" This is a paraphrased quote as Justin, our project coordinator was translating her response after she had finished speaking.

Once we had heard many testimonials of the benefits of a co-op and said goodbye to the ladies, the nurse that me and Justin had visited the co-op with voiced some of her concerns. She said that the women she is working with have a lot of distrust among them and the thought of them owning and running a farm or business together worries her. Justin assured her that you should not approach lack of trust head on the beginning of an endeavor like this. The people simply need to be put to work. When people are busy and working hard it is difficult for drama and distrust to grow. Simultaneously, as the enterprise grows and the members work together over time, they see that they are all putting in equal energy and are getting equal benefits. This natural process will work to solve the problem of lack of trust on it's own.

The most interesting part of these communities to me is that people that were extremely desolate and lonely to begin with made the leap in faith to risk what they did have to put their efforts together in order to (hopefully) become more successful in the long run.

This is curious when you look at Rwanda’s history. Rwanda’s traumatic and horrific past was a culmination of divisions between ethnic groups. These groups had extreme racial biases against each other and this caused them to not believe one group was worthy of living. Fast forward a little over 20 years later and you see these divisions evaporating and regrowing into blossoming cooperatives. Co-ops that trust each other enough to know that everyone is putting in equal inputs (cooperative entrance fee, and manual labor and time for the enterprise) and are receiving equal outputs (dividends from the cooperative farmland and/or business).

This is a miracle turn of events. The growth of these communities is not only in their reconciliation but in their education towards leadership, agricultural, and business training. The only way that these co-op businesses can exist as functioning bodies is if they have a functioning understanding of how a business works. How supply and demands are related, how costs affect their profits, how to market affectively, how to take profits and divide them equally among the community, etc. I will talk more about how we train cooperatives to obtain and apply these skills in a future post.

Another beneficial part of this project is that we are working with the first generation of children that are growing up in these cohesive, functioning community. They are internalizing what they see, hear, and learn. They are internalizing not only how a community can work together but how the business should work in order to be the most productive to the community.

In the United States I see a lot of greed and selfishness when I look to businesses, this greed is extremely troubling especially when I look to see the inequality between executives pay and lower ranking employees pay. I am so inspired when I look to these cooperatives that are not individuals looking for individual benefits, but groups looking to sustain the life of one another.