Join members of NYC co-ops and solidarity economy enterprise for a deep dive into how we work—individually, collectively, and in community. With curriculum developed in partnership with the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance and delivered by skilled and seasoned facilitators, participants will learn how to:
- Identify, analyze, and respond to how does power operate in our organizations and our society
- Effectively relate and respond to our individual needs as leaders
- Respond to white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, and oppression showing up in our organizations and leadership
- Deepen understanding and knowledge of the unique qualities needed for a cooperative leader
- Identify, address, and prevent burnout in ourselves and our organizations
- Use somatic tools to support healthy group functioning
- Deepen democratic decision-making
- Gain understanding and awareness of different kinds of leadership styles and personalities, and how to best make use of them in a team
- Deepen conflict resolution skills
- Gain a deeper understanding and analysis of the ways co-ops, gardens, and solidarity enterprise can effectively integrate with social movements
Dates
The intensive includes 5 days of programming. We ask participants to attend all days because because each session builds off the last.
1. Saturday February 17th, 2018 (11AM-3PM)
2. Sunday February 18th, 2018 (11AM-4PM)
3. Saturday March 10th, 2018 (11AM-3PM)
4. Sunday March 11th, 2018 (11AM-3PM)
5. Saturday April 7th, 2018 (11AM-3PM)
Cost
Cost is on a sliding scale. Participation in the conference is valued at $1600 per person. Here is a suggested scale:
- Tier 1 (volunteer organizations who have paid out between $0 and $2000 in wages last fiscal year): scholarships are available
- Tier 2 (organizations who have paid between $2000 and $20,000 in wages last fiscal year): $200
- Tier 3 (organizations who have paid between $20,000 and $100,000 in wages last fiscal year): $500
- Tier 4 (organizations who have paid $100,000 + in wages last fiscal year): $700
No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Please fill out the application and let us know if cost is an issue for you and we will get back to you regarding assistance.
Facilitators
Zara Serabian-Arthur is a founding member of Meerkat Media, a filmmaking collective and worker cooperative formed in2005. In her work with Meerkat Media, she produces, directs and edits films in collaboration with non-profits and movement organizations, while also taking a leadership role in the group’s facilitation, strategic planning, and educational projects. She is also a member of SolidarityNYC, a volunteer collective that works to connect, support and promote NYC’s solidarity economy through mapping, community-based research and public education, and is a Peer Educator with the Cooperative Economics Alliance of NYC. Zara is passionate about the worker cooperative movement, and the interconnected projects of building local solidarity economies and fighting for broader social justice goals.
Lauren Taylor Hudson has been a member of SolidarityNYC since 2012. She is currently a doctoral student in Earth and Environmental Sciences at the CUNY Graduate Center where she writes about anti-capitalist organizing among women in NYC. Her research interests concern how economic subjectivities are created between and among those who perform the majority of SE labor, how their narratives of the solidarity economy cohere and diverge from dominant SE discourses, and how such discourses create a sense of ‘movement space’. A native Californian, Lauren now lives in Brooklyn where she tweets about the Solidarity Economy and bad TV at @blactivist
Esteban Kelly: Esteban Kelly is the Executive Director for the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) and is a co-founder of AORTA (Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance), a worker co-op that builds capacity for social justice projects through intersectional training and consulting. Esteban is a visionary leader and compassionate strategist who inspires organizers by drawing on science fiction, social theory, and collective liberation.Esteban has been an important leader and creative force in solidarity economy and cooperative movements, where he has served on many boards including the Democracy at Work Institute, the US Solidarity Economy Network, the National Cooperative Business Association, Mariposa Food Co-op, the LCA land trust, and NASCO (North American Students for Cooperation) where he spent a decade in leadership on both board and staff. Esteban recently worked at the New Economy Coalition as Development Director and briefly Staff Director. Esteban is a co-founder and the first board President of the cross-sectoral Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA), which works to advance a robust, sustainable economy in the Delaware Valley. Esteban is a mayoral appointee to and co-chair of the Philadelphia Food Policy Advisory Council, and is an advisor to the artist-activist training network, Beautiful Trouble. Internationally, Esteban has advocated for workplace democracy through the ICA (International Cooperative Alliance) and CICOPA (the international worker co-op federation), and for land reform and other social movements from Canada to Brazil.
Ana Martina is the Membership Director of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Born and raised in Mexico City, her work with community media took her to California and Arizona where she collaborated with different independent media outlets. Once she moved to Philadelphia, she served as the Technical Director with the Prometheus Radio Project supporting communities and organizations across the country in their efforts to access community-owned media. From 2011 to 2014 Ana Martina helped organize the Spanish Speaker Network Gathering at the Allied Media Conference celebrated in Detroit. In 2014 Ana was invited to join the Rhizomatica project where she helped install mobile phone networks owned by autonomous indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. Early spring 2016, she moved back to Philadelphia with her partner and 2 year old. Back in her community now, she is working towards the creation of a bilingual media tech coop.
