Money Grows on Trees: an event to promote cooperative business model for youth autonomy

Last week (3rd December) the Youth Forum, along with Cooperatives Europe, held its 'Money Grows on Trees' event, focusing on what cooperatives can offer young people.

Does money really grow on trees? We wish it were that easy. But there are ways to make European youth more autonomous, as youth organisations in Europe are able to grow stronger. The Money Grows on Trees event aimed to bring together a group of cooperative experts, policy and decision makers, and youth organisation representatives in order to discuss how a cooperative model can support youth and youth organisations. These discussions were focused on encouraging youth organisations to consider the cooperative model for their work.

By creating a cooperative environment that focuses on a democratic structure and organisational aims, organisations will have better working conditions that are more suited to youth engagement. This encourages and enables youth to get experience in decision-making, leadership, and diverse areas of work. Overall, this will help young people to become better managers, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

Lloyd Russel-Moyle, vice president of the European Youth Forum, welcomed the attendees at the event before moderating the panel discussion, which included panelists Anneliese Dodds, MEP S&D, Claude Turmes, MEP Greens, and Klaus Niederlander, Director of Cooperatives Europe. Attendees were also able to pick up practical tips for setting up a youth cooperative at an afternoon workshop.

MEP Anneliese Dodds said: “The cooperative model can empower young people as employees and as consumers. I would like to see a more explicit recognition of cooperatives in the European Union. We need to make sure that competition rules within the EU do not discriminate against cooperatives”.

MEP Claude Turmes, he said: “Unprecedented demographic pressure, new technologies crashing the established system are only two of the factors pushing us to find new solutions urgently. These are challenges, but also opportunities to re-design our society.”

Two young cooperative entrepreneurs presented their experience. Sébastien Chaillou outlined the activities of Solidarité Etudiante, the first student cooperative created in France, which provides services to students in universities and campus. Paolo Campagnano presented Impact Hub Rovereto, a cooperative managing coworking space in Rovereto and in Trento (Italy) and providing business support services to its customers.

Klaus Niederländer, Director of Cooperatives Europe, said: “We are proud of this initiative: we are convinced that having young people and cooperatives coming closer together will be beneficial for the whole European economy. We welcome the attention that members of the EU Parliament are providing to this issue and we are committed to continue this work. We now expect that European Institutions will support our work to let our business model be known to young people, and give us the tools to support youth cooperative entrepreneurship”.

The European Youth Forum is dedicated to promoting youth autonomy, which can be partially achieved by increasing and strengthening the capabilities of European youth organisations. Youth cooperatives represent a source for innovation that will help to solve some of the bigger issues facing youth today.

You can read the Youth Forum’s Money Grows on Trees publication in full in .pdf below.