The development gap between center and periphery results to economic and social problems accompanied by high migration rates. Unless interventions are done to close the gap, the economic and social problems will be escalated like unemployment, income inequality, poverty, social exclusion.In this respect, to create a sustainable rural development policy, promotion and strengthening of cooperatives has been chosen as a viable and productive tool. However, there are two important challenges before development of cooperatives.. First, depending on the inadequacies in number of qualified trainers these trainings cannot be done extensively throughout Turkey. Second, these trainings in general are limited to legal, bureaucratic and financial issues. Moreover, it focuses on the rights and responsibilities of the members and financial management topics. It is obvious that existing training programs do not offer solutions to problems like the lack of social capital and culture of working together or inadequacies of digital and e-commerce skills especially for people in rural areas. Neither has it integrated specific training approaches for disadvantaged groups like people in rural areas, women and unemployed people.Taking all these problems into account, this Project aims at contributing to the rural sustainable development by strengthening cooperatives through innovation in the area of adult education for the purpose of improving basic organizational skills of people. Specific objectives of the project are developing a new cooperative training programme through innovation (especially in the areas of e-commerce, marketing, branding and promotion as well as communication and working together), strengthening the capacity of stakeholders and trainers in trainings for cooperatives , increasing number and participants of cooperative trainings as well as increasing the skills and competencies of cooperative administrators/members and dissemination of best practices.To realize these objectives, under the leadership of Ankara Development Agency; Directorate of Trade, , Directorate of Agriculture, Food and Livestock, Governorships of Nallıhan and Beypazarı came together with Legacoop Puglia, Cooperative College and DGRV which have extensive knowledge and expertise on cooperatives. . All activities and outputs will be carried out together by the partner institutions with 3 transnational meetings, 3 trainings and 1 pilot training. These activities will increase the capacity of the trainers to develop a new education content and methodology. At the end of the project, there are going to be important outputs: • Establishment of a website that brings together all stakeholders and disseminate knowledge;• Development of training needs analysis report of cooperatives • New education plan and curricula which is going to be tailor-made to meet the needs of the disadvantageous groups; • A toolkit and manual to guide the trainers • A good practices book and video to disseminate the successful cases • Quality Plan, Monitoring and Evaluation PlanAll of these outputs will be carried out by project teams and steering committee of the partners in 24 months period with periodical meetings and extensive research on the field as well as analysis of current situation and discussions made by the partners. And the outputs will be disseminated to trainers, cooperative members, administrators and policy makers at local, national and international levels through 6 multiplier events with the participation of at least 390 people as well as through other dissemination channels.At the end, the project will develop innovative tools like special educational content for improving social capital and integration of branding and marketing, digital skills modules to the conventional trainings which will result in more productive and successful cooperatives. It is believed that all the activities will contribute to establishment of a sustainable rural development mechanism in localities.
Today, we still face many social and economic problems in many parts of the world. Unless interventions are done, the economic and social problems will be escalated like unemployment, income inequality, poverty, social exclusion. In this respect, to create a sustainable development policy, promotion and strengthening of cooperatives has seen as a viable and productive tool. Cooperatives are associations of people to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise as defined by The International Co-operative Alliance. As businesses driven by values not just profit, co-operatives share internationally agreed principles and act together to build a better world through co-operation. However, it is obvious that most of the cooperatives cannot be successful in the market because of shortcomings of entrepreneurship, marketing, branding, brand promotion and lack of effective governance structures. And there is need for developing the capacities of cooperatives. To do this, the most important mean is education and training. With this aim, the partners of the Educated Trainers, Stronger Cooperatives Project; Ankara Development Agency, Co-operative College the Italian Cooperative Federation Legacoop Puglia, and the Deutscher Genossenschafts- und Raiffeisen Verband (reg. assoc.) (DGRV) as well as Directorate of Trade, Directorate of Agriculture, Food and Livestock, Governorships of Nallıhan and Beypazarı have come together worked towards developing the six intellectual outputs of the project: • A website that brings together all stakeholders and disseminate knowledge • Training needs analysis report of cooperatives • New education plan and curricula which is tailor-made to meet the needs of the disadvantageous groups • An education toolkit and manual to guide the trainers • A best practice book and good practices video to disseminate the successful cases In 24 months period the project team and steering committee have made periodical meetings among themselves and with representatives of stakeholders and cooperatives on the field to analyze the current situation and ways of improvement. First, the website of the project has been established to present the project outputs and allow partners to announce news periodically to stakeholders. Then, the training need analysis of cooperatives report was prepared. This study has constituted the ground for developing a new education programme for cooperatives. Together with all partners new curricula and methods of education have been explored through the three learning, teaching and training activities. In Bari, Bonn and Manchester the trainers and experts have transferred knowledge on basics of cooperative training and each partner had the opportunity to learn new ways of trainings and made important contributions through the discussions. After a year of learning and training, the partners developed the new education programme. The draft toolkit then was tested with a pilot programme in Ankara. The toolkit provides information and training exercises for adult learners in the topics of basic of a cooperative, starting a cooperative, business plan, strategic planning and financial management, monitoring performance and business audits, skills for success and marketing and communication. The book successfully presents innovative tools of cooperative trainings and make easier for trainers to carry out tailor made programmes selecting appropriate topics and methods from the toolkit for their target audience. In parallel to these, partners worked on developing the best practice book and good practices videos. Through the interviews general information about selected cooperatives, their main activities, information on how they have succeeded which methods they use and how they maintained sustainability in their work and their expectations from future have been explored. The book contains 18 successful cases of cooperatives which are presented to cooperatives to inspire them in their journey. Moreover, 11 videos have been shot to disseminate the exciting stories of cooperatives and to be used as visual materials in delivering trainings for cooperatives. All the outputs have been disseminated to trainers, cooperative members, administrators and policy makers at local, national and international levels through 4 multiplier events with the participation of around 300 people as well as through other dissemination channels. The innovative tools produced and all the other activities contributed to the increase of institutional capacity of cooperatives, improved knowledge and increased awareness about the importance of the cooperatives in the public, increased capacity of cooperative trainers as well as initiation of new local development programmes in collaboration with cooperatives.