As explained by Dr. Delia Marx explains the objectives of the Westchester Cooperative Network
Newsroom/Westchester Hispanic
Dr. Delia Marx, co-founder of the Westchester Cooperative Network, announced a campaign to spread the values and principles of cooperatives, in order to advance the worker cooperative model in Westchester County.
Westchester Cooperative Network, is a non-profit organization that provides education in this area, to non-profit organizations, local governments, and to the community and services.
Among its principles are open and voluntary membership, which means that there is no discrimination, race, gender or ethnicity or anything; the democratic control of its members, which is the basis of one worker, one vote and is distinguished from other organizations that have a different structure, especially those with greater investment have greater decision-making power, which would not be the case in a worker cooperative.
Another of the principles is the economic participation of its members, through investment or work. That each one donate what they can, for example, they can contribute hours to capitalize. When a cooperative is formed, one of the most important things is to create the statutes and a constitution where all the rules are established.
Education, training and information are key and are benefits that are granted to all because in cooperatives there is a drive for everyone to learn, so that they can work efficiently. The cooperative promotes continuous training.
Another important factor is cooperation between cooperatives, which tries to establish a cooperative world where everyone supports each other and also offer mutual help to other cooperatives, since they are mutual clients.
The last principle is concern for the community and being owned by the workers themselves, they are directly linked to the community and give back to the same community with the income they have. They must live in the community where they are located. It is a natural consequence of the cooperative.
“We are a small non-profit organization, we are mostly volunteers in the organization and we are inspired by the ecosystem that exists of cooperatives that exists in New York City, where there are many worker cooperatives that are operating and there are several organizations that support them. in different aspects, be it legal, accounting, training, comprehensive support,” said Dr. Marx.
The founders of this organization saw that nothing of this business format existed in Westchester and decided to create this institution.
“We found out that none of that exists right now in Westchester County and that’s why we call ourselves the Westchester Cooperative Network. Because the idea is to make a connection with Westchester cooperatives,” she said.
Marx explained that the doors are open to any person or group that wants to form a cooperative. “If you get the seven principles together, they can approach us and we would have some preliminary meetings to see what they need to support them.”
One of the institutions that sponsors the Westchester Cooperative Network is the Elias Foundation, a non-profit organization created in 1999 to support organizations designed to bring about social change in Westchester.
“We were very lucky to be sponsored by the Elias Foundation and it allows us to use part of that money, to distribute it and support groups interested in forming a cooperative through grants, and for this there are forms that can be downloaded from the page. There are a series of questions that those interested can ask, about what they want to do and who the members are. These are basic questions that are then analyzed by our council, who decides whether or not to award the grant of up to $10,000,” explained the board.
What type of area are they targeting?
We do not have a restriction on the type of business they want to start and it depends on the availability of the people and ideas they have. It depends on them, for example, construction. Right now there is a group that wants to form a cooperative of car painters, there are others who are thinking about sewing. Another who is thinking of dog walking or pet sitting services. And one that I think has a great future in Westchester is the care of the elderly and people who are disabled for accompaniment.
For information, you can visit info@westchestercooperative.net
[tabs type=”horizontal”][tabs_head][tab_title]PROFILE[/tab_title][/tabs_head][tab]
Dr. Delia Marx, is Argentine, and lives for more than 40 years in New York, always in Greenburgh. She was educated in Argentina and here she did her master’s and doctorate in Computer Science at NYU (which was Politechninc university at the time).
She was a professor at Mercy College, for more than 20 years, in computer science and retired 10 years ago. She has since dedicated her energy to philanthropic activities, including this passion that she has for the worker cooperative. “Because I think they are the future of society. Where we all win together”.
Her first experience in a cooperative was in Argentina, where the cooperative world movement is quite extensive. “So much so that she organized and led tours to Buenos Aires, Argentina from the United States so that people could get to know the experiences.”
She is a board member of WESTPAC, the Greenburgh Human Rights Committee, and various organizations. But most of her work and dedication is directed to the world of cooperatives trying to carry out the Westchester Cooperative Network project.
[/tab][/tabs]
Posted on November 11, 2022
