The Singapore National Co-operative Federation (SNCF) plans to take forward the momentum of the International Year of Co-operatives.
Throughout 2012, the SNCF organised various events to increase awareness of co-operatives and promote the enterprise model.
SNCF Chief Executive, Dolly Goh, said the International Year had helped to raise the movement’s visibility. The organisation conducted a survey before and after the Year; and the results indicated that co-operative awareness had increased by more than 200 per cent.
A key element in the SNCF's strategy is inter-co-operation. By working together, co-ops can reduce costs and achieve scale, explained Dolly Goh. She added that the movement had experienced growth in the past five years. Revenue had increased 2.6 times, net surplus 4.2 times and assets more than 11.5 times. “The figures have also given us a lot of encouragement that the co-op movement had done very well,” she said.
Last month the SNCF held its annual leaders’ conference and the theme of the event was sustainability. The conference discussed how co-operatives can benefit from employing a ‘sustainability’ strategy and discovered how some organisations have succeeded in doing so, by raising awareness and through collaboration.
Referring to ICA’s Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade, Ms Goh said participation, another key topic of the Blueprint, was crucial. “If people do not know about co-ops, they will not be able to form new co-ops, they will not support co-ops, and they will not even appreciate the co-ops’ existence,” she explained.
Ms Goh said that with the International Year, co-ops from all over the world realised they should all work together to increase the movement’s visibility at global level. Through its various youth programmes, the SNCF has also succeeded in getting young people involved in co-operatives.
She said that these programmes were essential in forming future co-operative leaders. With the co-op movement in Singapore being run by veterans who have been involved for a very long time, young people can learn from them and engage with co-operators from a very early age. In this way, instead of being self-centred, they get to find out more about co-operative principles and values.
Referring to future projects, Dolly Goh said: “This year we are going to bring people together and walk together and we are trying to break the Singapore Book of Records for everyone to come together to form the SNCF logo.” The initiative builds on the success of last year’s Co-opaliciouz, the largest gathering of co-op members and their families in the history of Singapore.
Photo: Singaporean co-operators at Co-opaliciouz.
