By Hazel Corcoran
- International Year of Cooperatives 2025
- JEDDI Committee
- New Board Equity Advisor
- Research Project
The International Year of Cooperatives 2025 is underway, coming at a pivotal moment in both the co-op sector and the wider world. The theme of “Cooperatives Build a Better World,” aims to raise awareness, promote growth, and inspire leadership in the cooperative movement. CWCF is excited about the opportunities for fulfilling these objectives in the months ahead, including a day devoted specifically to the International Year of Cooperatives at our 2025 Conference, November 18-20 in Edmonton.
In other exciting news, CWCF is pleased to be working with a reinvigorated JEDDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Decolonization, and Inclusion) Committee, which held its first meeting last month. The Committee will be meeting regularly over the coming year to further the long-term objective of a worker co-operative movement in Canada which is diverse, inclusive and just, evidenced by more participation by people representing the full diversity of the country within the worker co-op movement.
As part of our JEDDI work, we recently welcomed a second Equity Advisor to CWCF’s Board, Dr. Lucenia Ortiz of Edmonton’s Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative. Chair of MCHB’s Board since 2020, Lucenia brings a wealth of experience within the nonprofit sector to this role (please see the separate article on her in this issue). She will be an integral part of the board, working alongside our other Equity Advisor, Juliet ‘Kego Ume-Onyido.
CWCF recognizes that to fully realize the worker co-op model’s transformative potential, the movement must look inward to examine just how fully it invites and responds to diversity. To that end, Dr. Julia Fursova and Dr. Ola Tjornbo of Renaissance College (University of New Brunswick) were recently awarded a SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant of $23,350 to conduct community-based participatory research in partnership with CWCF to advance equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization in the co-op ecosystem and strengthen the solidarity economy in Canada. The research project will provide answers to the key question – what needs to change within the Canadian worker co-op movement to support and nurture the capacities and assets of the co-ops led by equity-denied groups?