Indonesia for Humanity (IKA) is holding a webinar “Cooperatives and CSOs: The Meeting Point of Economic and Social Movements in Practice” on August 3, 2021. This webinar is here to respond to concerns about upstream to downstream economic disruption faced by all elements of society in Indonesia. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) which are the driving force of social movements that have the potential to bind community solidarity together to combat anxiety due to the economic turbulence they are facing.
The webinar presents three resource persons who are competent in the solidarity economy movement, namely (1) Suroto from among researchers, observers, and practitioners of cooperatives; (2) Ukke R. Kosasih as the Board of Indonesian for Humanity (IKA); (3) Romlawati as Co-Director of the Implementation for Strengthening the PEKKA Economic Movement. The webinar lasted for three hours discussing the various links between Cooperatives and CSOs with approximately 100 enthusiastic participants participating to the end.
Humans who are often perpetrators, beneficiaries, and victims in economic activities must have various ways to continue to survive and increase independence. This will encourage how humans can be free from economic games by owners of large capital that threaten the benefit of human life in general. The existence of asymmetric power relations in controlling the economy, the position of the community continues to weaken economically. The reliance on the global economy shows evidence that a structured downturn has occurred.
Therefore, the solidarity economy movement must be able to encourage the creation of community independence that strengthens solidarity in community economic initiatives. Cooperatives as a financial institution are an element that can help the Indonesian people to build a community that is independent and does not necessarily exploit humans and the environment.
The FGD findings show that some facilitators still carry out direct mentoring work. This means that the role of the business world for community development competently is influenced by how a business entity can prioritize people over capital. Through the role of a business model that pays attention to community empowerment, the concept of profit oriented which can damage values in a person then experiences a shift in perspective to be benefit oriented. How in these two concepts, the striking difference between them is when a business pays attention to the benefits in terms of value and competence given and received by them, compared to the profits in terms of the amount of income they face. This can be seen from how when a business model pays attention to the welfare of the elements of the workers in it, a profit factor will be achieved.
The cooperative model that develops the perspective of increasing competence instead of competition, creates solidarity and cooperation between business actors in it. In addition to business actors, consumers are also used as co-producer elements who have a role as capital owners and not only as objects of the target market. The creation of an economic democracy in society affects the increasing attention to the strengthening of human values, cultural wisdom, to ecological sustainability.
Profits from business results become a fuel in the solidarity economy movement that can strengthen resources for advocacy. In civil society organizations that are often based on a crowdfunding system, CSOs do not have a strong foundation to defend the movement they are fighting for. Through the establishment of cooperatives, business activities with their income can strengthen the social movement that civil society organizations will fight for.