Tower Hamlets CDA celebrates 25th

Tower Hamlets Co-operative Development Agency (CDA) – which helped found Social Enterprise London, the Social Enterprise Coalition and Co-operatives London – last week celebrated a quarter of a century at the forefront of co-operative and social enterprise.

The CDA, which helped put the ‘social enterprise agenda’ on the map, has been providing business support to co-operatives, community owned businesses and social enterprises in East London for 25 years since 1984.

Gregory Cohn, Chief Executive of Tower Hamlets CDA, said that when the agency started the Co-operative food stores were well known but worker co-operatives, housing co-operatives and the social enterprise sector were almost hidden away.

“Whereas today,” he said, “25 years on, we have a dynamic co-operative and social enterprise sector in East London and London wide, there are nearly 600 established housing and worker co-operatives.”

The CDA’s commitment to support and expand the London co-operative sector remains strong.

“Over the last couple of years, we have been working with Co-operativesUK and the many London co-operatives to launch Co-operatives London. It’s an umbrella body to shout about the successes of the 600 London co-operatives,” he said.

Ed Mayo, Secretary General of Co-operativesUK, said: “Tower Hamlets CDA been a leading light and the CDA is testament to the importance of providing a specialist and locally based agency to promote the co-operative sector. Amongst the many businesses it has helped to establish are some of London’s most successful co-operatives.”

As well as successful, established co-operatives such as Account 3, Paperback and Calverts, the CDA has been working more recently on food co-operatives.

Noting the high level of poor diet related ill health in East London, the CDA launched a food co-operative programme in 2000 and this led to the establishment of 18 successful community based Food Co-operatives, primarily by Bangladeshi women (pictured). More recently the CDA has supported the launch of co-operative-based fruit tuck shops in 25 local primary schools.

Speaking from a UK-wide perspective, Ed Mayo said: “The CDA’s huge positive impact in East London demonstrates the difference that a local community led agency can make to enterprises, the local area and to the wider co-operative and social enterprise sectors."

www.co-operation.coop

Fair Traders Co-operative launches share issue

A new co-operative – the Fair Traders Co-operative – is launching a share issue to raise finance for its pioneering work.

The co-operative has been set up to help develop Fairtrade. It will be working closely with and buying Fairtrade goods from small producers in places like India, Tanzania, Malawi and Kenya. These will then be traded through a website and its shop in Holmfirth, Yorkshire.

Its aim, however, is to get its customers, other co-operatives and NGOs involved in the business by becoming part owners of The Fair Traders Co-operative. People can invest anywhere from £20 to £20,000, which will finance the development of the business.

Investors are not simply wanted for their financial contribution. The co-operative’s unique selling point is that every product sold will have undergone a thorough sustainability assessment in terms of the environmental, social, and economic impacts. Members will be able to get involved in this assessment process, using the website to feed in comments and their assessments of the products.

The Fair Traders Co-operative, which will begin trading in early 2010, has a big vision of how its co-operative structure – in which customers and interested organisations are active members – can make it a pioneer of sustainable, intelligent consumerism.

http://www.thefairtraderscooperative.co.uk/

For more information on the growing use of community share issues in the UK visit http://www.communityshares.org.uk/