On 19 August the ICA marked its 125th anniversary with a series of initiatives, including the release of ICA 125, 4 Voices, a publication exploring the movement’s past, present and future, a video from president Ariel Guarco and testimonies of countries who sent delegates to the first ICA Congress.
Cooperative solutions to global challenges
In his video message to the movement, Mr Guarco talked about the important role of cooperatives in tackling the world’s most difficult challenges, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, racial inequalities and climate change. Cooperative values and principles will play a key role in the reconstruction post Covid-19, he said.
ICA 125, 4 Voices
In the first chapter of the publication, Gillian Lonergan, who spent her working life as a librarian at the Co-operative Heritage Trust’s National Co-operative Archive in Manchester, looked at the cooperative movement at the time of the 1895 World Cooperative Congress and the importance of the principles set out by the Rochdale Pioneers.
Chapter two featured cooperative educator, historian, author and academic, Dr Rita Rhodes, who talked about the development of the ICA and the cooperative identity following the organisation’s first Congress in 1895.
In the third chapter Martin Lowery, chair of the ICA Identity Committee, explored how embracing the cooperative identity and values can help to tackle some of today’s greatest issues.
Chapter four focused on what cooperative identity means to young people. Vina Vida Rempillo, a training coordinator at the Philippine National Confederation of Cooperatives, shared her experience as a young cooperator and her view on the role of the ICA leading the global cooperative movement.
Read the publication here.
