Neighborhoods Mini-clubs
Kazi Abdur Rouf
Visiting Scholar
Leadership, Higher Education and Adult Education
OISE
University of Toronto
July 03, 2012
Concept
• Neighbourhood Mini-Club (NMC) is a mini-cooperative program
for low income neighbours
• To network and form groups, to develop collective behaviour and
cooperative values
• To facilitate thinking and forming groups
• Continue to interact with group members to develop their selfesteem as well as collective esteem
• To develop entrepreneurial skills, financial discipline and
leaderships among members
Concept continue-2
• To share information and exchange their thoughts and
experiences
• Exposure to different ways of incomes and to overcome poverty
• Develop negotiating power
•
• To engage in social businesses
Advantages
• To free people from isolation and a monotonous life.
• To help members develop partnerships to solve their
problems
• To think of to involve in income generating activities and
engage in innovative social business projects
• Co-operatives generally have twice the survival rate of
other private business
• Credit unions prefer lending to cooperative members
• To free them from poverty.
Survival rates of Co-operative businesses vs private
companies
Survival rate
of business
after….
5 years
10 years
Long term
All
cooperatives
64%
46%
30%
Private sector
companies
(Statistics
Canada-208
36%
20%
N?A
Objectives of the Neighbourhood Mini-Club Program
(NMCP)
• To organize and facilitate neighbourhood networking
among low income people to develop cooperative
behaviour and increase solidarity
• To assist club members to find alternative solutions for
their social and economic problems;
• Connect members with local credit unions and other
economic resources ;
• To mobilize them to initiate and run community social
and economic programs in order to reduce their poverty
NMCP Services
• Organize open-house sessions, create dialogue among club members
to discuss benefits of social economy and social enterprises
• Discuss existing types of Canadian clubs/cooperatives
• Facilitate forming neighbourhood mini-clubs
• Record and monitor club members activities
• Facilitate members’ involvements in income generating activities,
recycling businesses, and many other social businesses.
• Organise and conduct trainings/workshops on moral education, miniclub management, financial literacy, managing social enterprises and
small business, green development, citizen engagement, conflict
resolution
• Encourage graduated members (after one year) to engage in
sustainable social businesses and
• Connect and refer them to public resources, social services, settlement
counselling services, social enterprise funds and community economic
services.
Importance of Neighborhoods mini-Clubs
• Low income immigrants, single mothers have less
interaction collaborations with their neighbours
• New generations loss connections with their neighbours
• Reducing collectivistic behaviours
• Suffering them from isolation, a monotonous life and
frustration
• In Ontario “O’ dollars invest for promoting cooperative
• Grassroots CO needed to organize networking among
them
Cooperative gap widens
• Although Credit unions are increasing ; however, cooperatives
development trend is decreasing in Canada
For example, in Saskatchewan
Numbers of co-ops decreasing 15% in 2000-2005
Membership -10% (2000- 2005
Assets -59%
Revenue -62%
In Ontario : Cooperatives among low income : No statistics, no record
In Quebec : Cooperative growth rate is increasing (+152%) 1985-2005)
Source: (Diamantopoulos, 2011)
• After 2005
• Cooperative development is more decreasing in Canada
• Farmers numbers are decreasing 20% in 2005-2010 in Canada (Source: (Carlton University, 2012)
• 223 firms (1% of co-ops enterprises) Source: U of Wisconsin 2009.
Strategy: Start with informal memberships
• NMCP is facilitating group formations and connecting group members to
local resources and record members activities in the community
• Easy to form groups within neighborhoods informally
• Get experience to continue memberships with neighbors, develop skills of
accountability , respectfulness and trust each other
• Avoid administrative burden of registering with Coop Acts
• Develop social capital and collectivity
• Gain experiences and develop leadership skills
• Financial agenda after compact entrepreneurship development
Structure of the NMCs
• Three-five neighbours of the same sex, age group and class on a block
form a neighbourhood mini-club informally
• Block Centre (BC): a minimum of four mini clubs in a county
• Neighbourhood Mini-Club Cluster Centre (NMCC): Three County
Centers make one NMCC
• Cluster Worker (CW): CW is a primary service provider to organise,
facilitate and serve the club members
Operation Areas
• 1st year, NMCP will work in Keele and St. Clair neighbourhoods
• 2nd year expand to Etobicoke South Lakeshore, Etobicoke North and
Regent Park
• 3rd year expand to Scarborough South, Cox Well, Scarborough Middle,
Scarborough West and Melbourne area
•
• 4th year across GTA
Challenges
• The Neighbourhood mini-club (cooperative) concept is different from
the traditional cooperative principles
• NMC members might be reluctant to try the program without seeing
an upfront economic benefit
• Toronto is an advanced, industrialised, individualistic society; it
would be hard to develop cooperative values among people
• To get financing for the club members’ projects.
Thank you
Comments/Suggestions