Credit Unions, Housing, Food, Worker and Other Coops to Showcase Model

(October 10, 2011 – New York, NY) The International Year of Cooperatives (IYC) will be officially launched on October 31, 2011 with a statement by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York City.  To mark the occasion, the Federation has organized a Host Committee with representatives of all the cooperative sectors in New York City.  

A year-long campaign, “New York: Building a Cooperative City,” will be launched on November 1, 2011 with a seminar at the Ford Foundation (320 East 43rd Street, NY). The seminar will feature panel discussions by representatives of credit unions, housing, food, and workers’ cooperatives, as well as issuance of a proclamation by the City Council of New York.

Federation President/CEO Cliff Rosenthal described the excitement that IYC has generated. “For the first time, we brought together representatives of all the co-op sectors in New York. We estimate that between credit unions, housing co-ops, and others, more than one-million New Yorkers are members of cooperatives,” he said.

One of the main goals of the campaign is to raise awareness of the role co-ops play in people’s lives. “Many people actually do not fully realize that they are members and owners of their cooperatives,” Rosenthal said. “Some, though not all credit unions, for example, do not prominently market the fact that they are financial cooperatives. We think that this is a huge opportunity to spread that message to the masses.”

Rosenthal said he learned about IYC through the National Cooperative Business Association, of which the Federation is a member, and which is the U.S. coordinating body for IYC. “I was inspired by a recent opportunity to meet with the Caribbean Development Educators, some of whom had developed a detailed, creative month-by-month plan to celebrate IYC.”

The seminar is free of charge, but attendance is limited, so pre-registration is required. To register, and for more information, visit: http://conta.cc/orcxtU, or contact Federation Program Associate Elizabeth Friedrich at: efriedrich@cdcu.coop, or (800) 437-8711 x205.