APCYS 3.0 - Celebrating Youth as Torchbearers of Cooperative Identity

ICA-AP in collaboration with the ICA-EU Partnership, the ICA-AP Committee on Youth Cooperation (ICYC), and the ICA Domus Trust successfully organised the third edition of the Asia Pacific Cooperative Youth Summit (APCYS 3.0) from 27 - 29 July 2021. The theme this year was ‘Celebrating Youth as Torchbearers of the Cooperative Identity.’ The Summit, held virtually, received over 3,500 registrations from 23 Countries – Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroun, CANADA, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kenya, KIRIBATI, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Vietnam.

The Summit featured 30 speakers from 16 countries. Ms. Zahra Al-Hilaly, UN Australian Representative to UN Women's Generation Equality Youth Task Force delivered the keynote address at the opening ceremony and Dr. P. A. Kiriwandeniya, the Founder and Visionary Leader of the SANASA Movement in Sri Lanka at the closing ceremony. Ms. Zahra highlighted the need for equitable representation of youth in decision making and in ensuring that youth voices are being heard. Her powerful speech demanding change motivated the young participants to believe in themselves. She called upon the youth to find their passion and start by making small changes to carve a society that the youth wants. Dr. Kiriwandeniya shared his real-life experiences of building a national cooperative movement that was inspirational for the participants. He motivated them to uphold values and principles in any sector or enterprise they engage in.

Some of the sessions which were a major hit among the participants included

Spotlight on Coop Youth Entrepreneurs: The session highlighted youth who are at the forefront of starting or have started new cooperatives to address needs in their communities. It featured six speakers – Suzana Tang, Founder, Urban Origins, Singapore (Food Security); Annielen Panerio, General Manager, CamSur Multi-Purpose Cooperative, Philippines (Agriculture); Chan Hong, Facility Manager, Minsnail Housing Cooperative, South Korea (Community Housing for Youth); John Hayes, Creator & Co-Founder, MyCoolClass, Poland (Platform Coop owned by Teachers); Navitha Varsha, Co-founder, Karunachal Foundation, India (Environment Consciousness); and Anis Saddah, Co-founder & CEO, Innocircle Initiative, Indonesia (Incubator) who are on a mission to solve real-life issues through coop entrepreneurship.

Student Cooperative Clubs in Asia and Pacific - Precursor to Community Leadership: The session revolved around how Student Cooperative Clubs are precursors to youth leadership and introduced participants to unique and essential skills that are quite useful and relevant for community leadership. In the first part, the speakers were Masayuki Yasui, Chairperson, Student Committee from the National Federation of University Cooperatives Association, Japan and Hanis Nabila, Teacher & Creative Product Manager and Ellysaa Ezyanee, Student & Cooperative Board Member from Batu Pahat MARA Junior Science College Coop Ltd., Malaysia presented their work & activities of the university and school cooperative clubs. The second part was dedicated to an experiential learning activity to understand what it takes to form a cooperative. Participants were divided into smaller groups to form campus cooperatives and share their business ideas.

Get Inspired! A Talk by Youth Entrepreneur: The Summit aimed to facilitate cultural exchange, sharing of experiences, and enjoying the spirit of cooperation. Participants got the opportunity to listen to the inspirational journey of Deepak Ramola, Founder and Artistic Director of Project FUEL. He is a two-time TED Talk speaker, UN Action Plan Executor & Kindness Ambassador for UNESCO's Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development. He collects wisdom from people while travelling the world and share it in the form of life lessons through innovative education methods. Deepak shared some key lessons – solve a need, ask better questions, build meaningful connections, have a rich list, show gratitude, be wise!

Panel Discussion on Enabling Environment for Youth in Cooperatives: The three-day Summit culminated in a panel discussion with experts like Anthony Taylor, Policy Officer, Business Council of Cooperatives and Mutuals (BCCM) and Francesca Clarke, School Student, Youth Representative of BCCM to Global Youth Network (Australia); Yoneswilliam, Head - Division for Monitoring, Evaluation and Research, LPDB KUMKM, Ministry of SMEs and Cooperatives (Indonesia); Faisal Khan, Registrar, Department of Cooperatives, Government of Fiji; Heira Hardiyanti, Cooperator & Educator, IKOPIN & Co-Founder, MyCoolClass Coop (Indonesia); Suroto Bravo, Cooperative Expert, (Indonesia). They discussed various facets of youth participation that can be encouraged, the inhibiting factors, and how an enabling environment can be fostered for youth in the cooperative ecosystem.

Other sessions on Youth Engagement in Asia and Pacific, Cooperative Identity, Cooperative Cinema and the Cultural Show were beneficial for the participants to understand the thematic aspects of the Summit. All the session recordings are available on the ICA-AP Youtube Channel.

Coop Pitch 2021*

A key highlight of APCYS is the Coop Pitch Competition, designed to find new and sustainable enterprise ideas on cooperatives led by youth. Coop Pitch 2021 received 56 entries from nine countries – Afghan, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, and Vietnam.

The three winners of Coop Pitch 2021 are 1) Eco-Clean (Indonesia), a platform cooperative for cleaning-service providers; 2) Himalayan Hemp Cooperative (India), a community of artisans and farmers creating eco-conscious products; and 3) Udara Cooperative (Malaysia), food production through aquaponics systems.

First prize - Eco-Clean (Indonesia)

Team members: Latifa and Nabila

Establish a digital platform cooperative, Eco-Clean, for cleaning-services workers. The platform will be self-governed by the workers democratically. By relying on cooperative partners and communities of equal value, Eco-Clean aims to establish a sustainable and inclusive business environment. In addition, the members envision eco-friendly training to shape the workers' understanding of waste management and environmental issues they would be causing during their business operation. Would like to create a better place and better culture (perceptions, behavior, working conditions and treatments) toward the workers who mostly are housewives or workers who do not complete higher education. Target big cities where the demand for cleaning services is increasing.

“Our Coop idea, Eco-Clean, has some distinctive traits to offer to our target customers, it helps to improve the workers’ welfare and contributes to minimizing the environmental damage caused by poor waste management and cleaning products.”

Second Prize - Himalayan Hemp Cooperative (India)

Team members: Haneesh Katnawer (Lead), Sonam Sodha, Dilip Kanakanala, Advait Pillai, Rekha Das, the first farmer member

Himalayan Hemp Cooperative is a socio-ecological community of artisans, farmers and innovators. It is a foundational part of the Himalayan Hemp Cooperative Model working on preserving the indigenous variety of cannabis and hemp plants and community practices associated with the plant in the Himalayas. The work from home model for women artisans from marginalized societies aims to empower village eco-industries by creating eco-conscious products.

World’s first cannabis hemp fibre-based reusable sanitary pads and India’s only N95 hemp mask. “We conduct seminars in schools inviting both daughters and mothers with former being the customer and latter being the maker. Therefore, school seminars not only create awareness about menstruation, sanitary pads, etc. but also, offer work from home based opportunity for the mother.”

Third prize - Udara Cooperative (Malaysia)

Team members: Danish Huzayl (Lead), Nafisuddin, Nur Azra Shahira, and Farha Zulfa Umeiyra

Udara Cooperative from Kuala Kubu Bharu, located on the outskirts of the state of Selangor in Malaysia is run by school students. They plan to produce food sustainably through the implementation of aquaponics. The aquaponic system will be put in place within their school vicinity and the food produced supplied to local business partners around the district. Aquaponics couples aquaculture with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) whereby the nutrient-rich aquaculture water is fed to hydroponically grown plants, involving nitrifying bacteria for converting ammonia into nitrates. The food produced (chilies, roselle flowers, climbing perch fish and tilapia) will be supplied to local businesses that are unable to contact their usual suppliers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Udara Cooperative aim to give aid to struggling businesses while it puts in place sustainable method to produce food.

Produce of the future! “We believe that developing the structures and equipment would involve less carbon dioxide emissions through aquaponics, reducing our carbon footprint on the atmosphere.”

The winners will receive cash prizes worth USD 3,000 (first prize, USD 1,500; second prize, USD 1,000; and third prize, USD 500), guidance and mentorship support to further develop, validate and implement their cooperative ideas. This year AMUL or the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), the largest dairy cooperative in the world, sponsored the first and second prizes and the third prize was sponsored by the ICA Domus Trust.

The judging panel for Coop Pitch 2021 included Salonie Muralidhara Hiriyur, Senior Coordinator, SEWA Cooperative Federation, India; Rohan Clarke, Co-Founder, Incubator.coop & Director, Wayfairer.coop, Australia; H.P. Rathod, Cooperative Services & Administration, AMUL, India; and Teresa Paula "Teepee" E. Gile, Co-founder, General Manager, and Creative Director of RedRoot Artists Cooperative and Co-founder, Youth Connect Cooperative, Philippines.

The Coop Pitch participants were mentored by Heira Hardiyanti, Indonesia; Justine Limocon, Philippines, Samantha Subaida, Philippines; Dhanaj K M, India; Moosa Mehar, India; and Pendi Yusup, Indonesia.

*With inputs from Balasubramanian Iyer’s original article ‘'COOP Pitch Winners at APCYS 3.0.

http://icaap.coop/