In the scope of a programme titled ‘Social Cooperatives for All: Empowering Communities through Training and Capacity Development on Social Cooperatives’, Youth Deal Cooperative in Turkey provided training sessions to nine grassroots solidarity economy groups in eight cities– İzmir, Balıkesir, İstanbul, Çorum, Rize, Burdur, Isparta, and Muğla – toward establishing cooperative organizations.

The ILO’s Think.COOP training tool, which was recently translated into Turkish, was used during these training sessions to sensitize the participants regarding vertical and horizontal relationships, collective action, cooperative principles and democratizing businesses. A total of 154 grassroots practitioners participated in the training sessions. Follow-up support is provided by Youth Deal Cooperative to contribute to community development through the cooperative model.

Another roll-out of Think.Coop took place in Arıkbaşı, a village in Bayindir, Izmir that has 900 inhabitants who come from a Circassian heritage. The villagers from Arıkbaşı decided to start their own cooperative following a series of meetings strategizing on pathways to improve livelihoods through collective action.

Arıkbaşı villagers approached Youth Deal Cooperative to receive training on collective production of marketable village products. Youth Deal Cooperative conducted the first training using Think.Coop, which was well received by the participants.

Arıkbaşı now seeks to develop their own product lines for Circassian cheese, tomato sauce and jam. Youth Deal Cooperative is planning to continue supporting this endeavour through cooperative development tools including ILO’s Start.Coop which is already available in Turkish.