In 1992 the United Nations proclaimed the first Saturday of July of each year as the International Day of the Cooperatives. On Saturday 6 of July 2019, MEO celebrated the International Day of Cooperatives with a seminar. The topic of this year “Coops 4 Decent Work’’ was chosen by the United Nations and the International Cooperative Alliance considering the growing inequalities, increasing jobs insecurity and a high rate of unemployment, mainly among young people. The topic was chosen to support the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8 ”Inclusive Development and Decent Work”.
Cooperatives are people-oriented companies and play an important role in the preservation of decent work in each community, thus empowering people both in social and economic areas.
On Saturday 6 of July, the Minister of Economic Development Kenneth Gijsbertha, inaugurated the seminar after which had the participation of three local and one international speaker.
The three local speakers were Ms. Peggy Isenia, President of FEKOSKAN, who spoke about “The importance of cooperatives for decent work”, Mr. Raul Henriquez, Director of the Social Economic Council (SER) who spoke about “Labor developments in the world”/Future of Work” and Mr. Edward St. Jacobs, President of the Curaçao Central Union (SSK), who spoke about “The vision of the trade union and of the International Labor Organization (ILO) regarding decent work”.
The international keynote speaker, Mr. Andrés Alvarez Ovares as Project Director of the Centre for Cooperatives Studies and Training (CENECOOP) elaborated on: ”How cooperatives can prepare themselves to take advantage of Future Work and achieve Decent Work.
At the end of the seminar a panel discussion was held in which both the speakers and the present audience exchanged thoughts on what had been brought forward by the four speakers during the various presentations.
On the picture from left to right Kenneth Valpoort (Union), Minister Hensley Koeiman (Labor), Andrés Alvarez Ovares, Minister Kenneth Gijsbertha, Ms. Peggy Isenia, Mr.Raúl Henriquez.
Soon the video and pictures of the celebration will be available on Facebook page of MEO.