Co-operators in the United States celebrated the Co-operative Week, which falls every year on the first week of May, with a series of events designed to raise the profile of the movement, including a Hall of Fame Inductees Forum.
The National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA CLUSA) commenced the week with a board meeting where it discussed the 2013 financial reports. One of the main projects developed by NCBA CLUSA include the Uganda Conservation Farming Initiative, which was funded by the United States Development Agency (USDA) and helped boost crop yields for 60,000 smallholder farmers in northern Uganda.
On 7 May the Cooperative Development Foundation hosted the Cooperative Issue Forum at the National Press Club in Washington. Dame Pauline Green, president of the International Co-operative Alliance delivered a keynote speech on co-operative development in the global context.
To celebrate the significant contribution of individuals to the Co-operative Movement, the NCBA, in partnership with the Cooperative Development Foundation, also hosted this year’s Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the National Press Club.
On this occasion, four inductees have also been inducted to the Fall of Fame, the highest honour awarded by the US co-operative movement. This year’s entrants to the Hall of Fame are: Harriet May, retired president and chief executive of the Government Employees Credit Union; Barry Silver, executive vice president of the National Cooperative Bank; Martin Lowery, executive vice-president of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA); and Papa M. D. Sene, senior technical advisor for NCBA CLUSA.
The Cooperative Hall of Fame gallery is on display at NCBA CLUSA headquarters in Washington, D.C. and online at heroes.coop/archives.
Inductees must have achieved identifiable and lasting changes to improve and promote co-operatives, as well as to demonstrate innovation personal commitment and leadership.
The Co-op Week was also an opportunity for NCBA CLUSA staff members, some of which who work across the world, to interact, share ideas and experiences. They took part in an international staff retreat in Washington, where they received training in the CLUSA approach, a participatory method of co-operative and local development tested in the field but relevant at all levels of the organisation.
Photo: Hall of Fame inductees (Papa M. D. Sene, Harriet May, Martin Lowery and Barry Silver) (c) Cooperative Development Foundation
