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SHARING OWNERSHIP: A Zoom Of Our Own Conversation on Co-Op Businesses

This event was recorded live. As some feminist epistemologists (Gilligan, Belenky et al.) have taught us, seeing and seeking connections seems to be women’s ways of knowing. Our economics is lived in real complex communities. Our goal is to model how women can talk together and learn together about traditionally male territory still new to most women. Together we can construct a fuller knowledge and set of values now omitted from the mainstream “free market.” To that end, we're making the webinar—and will make all of them moving forward—available here for viewing forevermore.

Click here to access the event syllabus.

If you've ever wondered how exactly this different business model could help you and your community, tune in to this conversation about the growing number of worker-owned businesses, where women are the majority. What makes these businesses different? Why are women and people of color drawn to them? How do you start one? Where can you get help?

Draw from the expertise of Jamila Medley, an independent co-op consultant working with black women’s co-ops; Georgia Kelly, who coordinates trainings with Mondragon Cooperatives in Spain, the largest Co-op Corporation in the world; and Rickey Gard Diamond—author of Screwnomics: How Our Economy Works Against Women and Real Ways to Make Lasting Change and the “Women Unscrewing Screwnomics” column at Ms. magazine, and founder of AEOO.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS:

Georgia Kelly is the founder and director of Praxis Peace Institute, a non-profit peace education organization that is focused on transforming society through a systems approach to peace, social and economic justice, environmental sustainability, and civic participation. She has also developed educational seminar/tours in Italy, Croatia, Cuba, and at the Mondragón Cooperatives in Spain, where she has focused on cooperatives as an ethical and socially just economic model for the 21st century. She is the editor and co-author of Uncivil Liberties: Deconstructing Libertarianism, a critique of libertarian ideas and laissez-faire capitalism, and author of The Mondragón Report, a profile of twenty-two participants from various Praxis-Mondragon seminars, which demonstrates how they have used their newly acquired knowledge in creating economic alternatives in the U.S.

Jamila Medley has supported mission-based organizations in the non-profit and cooperative business sectors for over 20 years. As an independent consultant, she now leverages her background in organizational development, as well as her lived experience being part of efforts focused on economic and racial justice, to move organizations towards transformational change. From 2012-2021, Jamila served in governance roles and then as executive director of the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance; in 2018, Jamila was the Philadelphia Community Fellow for the Shared Economics in Equitable Development Fellowship. She serves on the boards of directors for several organizations including the Independence Public Media Foundation, Movement Alliance Project, Food Co-op Initiative, and All Together Now PA.

Rickey Gard Diamond—author of Screwnomics: How Our Economy Works Against Women and Real Ways to Make Lasting Change and the “Women Unscrewing Screwnomics” column at Ms. magazine, and founder of AEOO—facilitated the shared conversation.

ABOUT THE SERIES:

Our Zoom of Own Series brings women (and men!) together to construct a fuller knowledge and set of values now omitted from the mainstream “free market.” Together, we're flipping the script on a racist, sexist economy. Registrants receive a curriculum for further learning on the subjects covered and be able to submit questions to the panelists live and in advance.