The Directorate Sustainable Livelihoods & Institutional Capacity Building had a Summit on Capacity Enhancement of Co-operatives at the Horseshoe Inn, from 18 - 21 July 2017.
A Co-operative is defined as a group of people acting together to meet the common needs and aspirations of its members, sharing ownership and making decisions democratically.
The School Uniform Co-operative Programme is a garment making initiative throughout the Northern Cape and is implemented and supported by the Department Social Development, SASSA (South African Social Security Agency), NDA (National Development Agency), SEDA (Small Enterprise Development Agency) and Department of Economic Development & Tourism.
This Co-operative Summit was facilitated by the National Department of Social Development and each of the 40 Co-operatives sent two (2) representatives to represent them at the Summit. This Summit is a build-up to the National Department of Social Development Co-op Summit.
This initiative started in 2014 after the Minister of Social Development, Ms. Bathabile Dlamini, identified a need to supply under privileged children with school uniforms. This presented good opportunities for Co-operatives to participate in skills development and income generation.
These Co-operatives do not necessarily have all the material, equipment and technical skills needed to fully participate and benefit from these opportunities,which necessitated this Summit.
Therefore the purpose of the Co-operative Summit was:
- To Facilitate a Joint Stakeholder working session to assess and address the state of readiness of participating Co-operatives.
- To conduct an assessment on Compliance.
- To take the beneficiaries through all the standards/expectations by the various Departments and Agencies.
- To link Co-operatives to alternative markets.
- To set up a help desk for Co-operatives.
- To deal with key issues like:
+ Quotations, pricing and costing.
+ Capacity to deliver.
+ SASSA/NDA/SEDA/DEDAT support.
+ Corporate Governance.
+ Coaching and mentoring/capacity building.
+ Adherence to deadlines/timeframes.
+ Visioning exercises.
+ Collective Analysis of operatives capacities.
HOD Samson did the Opening & Welcome on the morning of the 19th July 2017, before Mr. Thamsanqa Maqubela, Executive Chairman of the South African Council for Graduates Co-operatives (SACGC) spoke on the professionalising of Co-operatives.
During the Summit several parallel sessions were held with both the Co-operatives and the Stakeholders while all the Stakeholders and Sector Partners met on how they can strengthen the Co-operatives in the Northern Cape, the Co-operatives broke into Commissions, per District, to do a SWOT anylsis and to formulate a vision.
Several Stakeholders made presentaions on how to assist the Co-operatives, such as: SASSA, NDA, Department of Small Business Development, SEDA, etc.
At the end of the Summit a Plan of Action was drawn up and preparation was done for International Day of Co-operatives.
