What would it be like to work at a place where the workers are also the people who determine policy and procedures? Where the profit is shared equally by all those who are employed and where there are no far-away stockholders or lobbyists who dictate that profits must supersede everything, including care for the environment and the safety and quality of the services or products being provided? A pipe dream? No! A cooperative!
On May 9, Awareness Film Night and Sooke Transition Initiative will present Celebrating the International Year of the Cooperative, a United Nations initiative with the theme “Cooperative Enterprises build a Better World.” The evening will feature the film Civilizing the Economy and a discussion about establishing cooperatives in the Sooke Region. Civilizing the Economy is a two-part, hour long film that takes the viewer to Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, where 45 per cent of the GDP is from cooperatives, and then presents some Canadian social services providers that are operating using a cooperative model. Don Brown and Andrew Moore will lead the post-screening discussion with the audience on sustainable inspired cooperative development in the Sooke Region. Don Brown, BSc., MBA, is a Cooperative Development Consultant with more than 30 years experience in national and international development consulting and Andrew is a Certified Cooperative Developer who has helped to establish and operate a host of very different coops in U.K, South Africa and B.C. He has also written Cooperative Acts for national governments in the U.K. and South Africa and for our B.C. provincial government.
Internationally, the cooperative movement includes 800 million members in 85 countries and is one of the largest and strongest movements in the world. In fact, there are more people employed in cooperatives than all the world’s multinational corporations combined. In Canada, four out of 10 Canadians belong to a cooperative.
This special evening will be held at the Edward Milne Community School theatre at 7 p.m. Admission is by donation.
This will be the season finale for Awareness Film Night.
The 18th season will open in October. Over the summer, film viewers can get their documentary fix by renting previously screened Awareness Film Night DVD’s at Video To Go. A list of films can be found at: www.awarenessfilmnight.ca