Co-op News October 2019: Sustainable Development

GLOBAL UPDATES
GLOBAL
Co-ops and credit unions respond to Hurricane Dorian
The Worldwide Foundation for Credit
Unions is sending US$10,000 (£8,149)
in Project Storm Break funds to the
Caribbean after Hurricane Dorian.
Seven people lost their lives and 13,000
homes were damaged or destroyed when
the storm hit the Bahamas on 1 September.
The foundation, the charitable arm of
World Council of Credit Unions, launched
Project Storm Break to allow an immediate
response to natural disasters.
The money will go to the Caribbean
Confederation of Credit Unions (CCCU)
to help credit unions get back up and
running to provide cash and other
financial services.
According to CCCU, one credit union has
suffered flooding up to the second floor of
its building. The federation continues to
assess Dorian’s impact on credit unions
on Grand Bahama and Abaco, the two
Bahamian islands that suffered the most
severe wind and flood damage.
“We want to help these communitybased
institutions get back in business
and servicing members as soon as
possible – even if it is in a parking lot
tent or other temporary location for now,”
said Mike Reuter, executive director of the
Worldwide Foundation.
“Getting these credit unions back on
their feet is the best step we can take to
getting their members back on a path to
a sustainable future.”
After hitting the Caribbean, Dorian
p Storm Dorian taken by Nick Hague on-board the ISS (Photo: NASA)
struck the USA, where electric co-ops have
been assisting with recovery efforts.
Lineworkers – from Southwest
Tennessee Electric Membership
Corporation in Brownsville and
Sequachee Valley Electric Cooperative
in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, headed
for Georgia and North Carolina to
restore power.
“Lineworkers have a desire to serve
others,” says David Callis, executive
vice president and general manager
of the Tennessee Electric Cooperative
Association. “It always impresses me how
quickly our crews volunteer to help, even
without knowing the conditions they will
face or how long they will be away from
their families.”
North Carolina Electric Co-op said its
co-ops were also ready to respond quickly.
“Our state has seen its share of
destructive hurricanes during the last
few years, and co-operative line crews
are storm-tested,” said Nelle Hotchkiss,
senior vice president and chief operating
officer of association services for North
Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives. “They
are highly trained, highly experienced and
committed to restoring power to members
as quickly as is safely possible.”
USA
Jessica Gordon Nembhard is a finalist for the Not the Nobel prize
Political economist Jessica Gordon
Nembhard is one of the finalists for the
Not the Nobel prize.
The prize was created by charity
Promoting Economic Pluralism, which
argues that the Nobel Prize has been given
to ideas which have led to ecological
breakdown and financial crisis.
Dr Nembhard is professor of community
justice and social economic development
in the Department of Africana Studies at
John Jay College, City University of NY.
Her work includes study of communitybased
economic development, alternative
urban development, co-op economics and
worker ownership, racial and economic
inequality, credit unions and communitybased
asset building.
In 2014, she published Collective
Courage: A History of African American
Cooperative Economic Thought and
Practice based on 15 years of research,
and she was inducted into the into the US
Cooperative Hall of Fame in 2016.
Nominations for the prize, who did not
make the final, include Ed Mayo, secretary
general of Co-operatives UK and solidarity
economy project Cooperation Jackson.
14 | OCTOBER 2019