Always on
This project successfully funded on 9th May 2023, you can still support them with a donation.
Help seed a new movement: Cooperation UK!
Hull, Kingston upon Hull, United Kingdom
Aim: A new society built on cooperation, solidarity & community. An Alternative to the politics & institutions of our time. Hope. Vision. A plan.
The systems we created to serve us are failing - but we created them, and that means we can change them. It's time for a vision for a different world to take shape amid the wreckage. And a proper plan to make it a reality.
Cooperation UK is an idea, a seed, a spark.
And we need your help to light it.
We are 9 people with different experiences & skills. But where we've come from is less important than what we're willing to do.
We are going to dedicate the next part of our lives to one thing: building a new society, from the ground up.
We're starting in Hull this April! Inspired by Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi, we will explore what a true Alternative society looks like, built around 5 pillars: Democracy, Education, Economy, Ecology and Resilience.
Your donations will enable us to stop talking & start DOING; that's the only way we can test the idea before sharing the plan (along with our successes & failures) far and wide, for other communities to build on.
We will work in service to the community, first targeting the Democracy pillar and establishing a People's Assembly. That's ordinary people - no less than 100 of us in each Assembly - coming together and discussing topics important to our community, and making impactful decisions together.
People's Assemblies are tried and tested tools that have redesigned politics from Brazil to Poland. Through People's Assemblies, every person and every community will remember what it feels like to have true agency over our lives. The Assemblies will create the space for informed, open dialogue and begin to repair the harm of our divided nation. And through the decisions of the Assembly, we will write the mandate for the other four pillars... and the real power to act on it.
WHAT WILL WE DO WITH YOUR DONATION?
- Reach every single person living in Hull. You heard right. We need to be having thousands of conversations, on every doorstep, in every front room, in every pub garden and every street corner. For that, we’re gonna need a hell of a lot of shoe rubber, porridge and bus fares.
- Document everything & share it far and wide. We are committed to being open source in everything we do, we’re not precious about our ideas or our mistakes, and if there’s any chance our experiences can help other communities organise, then it’s worth it. Videos, photos, podcasts, newsletters, yes!
- Host mini People’s Assemblies and in time, the big Hull People’s Assembly! That means putting on a spread of food, investing in some sound amplification, probably buying a bunch of biros and whiteboards, and importantly: offering practical (transportation) and financial (cash incentives) support to low-or-no income people, to ensure everyone can participate fully
- Facilitate cross-movement collaboration. There’s a tonne of good stuff already happening in every town in the UK, and without their ideas and passion, Cooperation UK won’t exist. So, part of your money will be spent helping existing groups and campaigns with whatever they need; think renting meeting spaces, printing fliers, filling the coffee machine…
We all know that truly surviving - in a meaningful way - the collapse of biodiversity, our climate and the economy isn't going to be possible without changing everything. In short: a new society. And we believe a new society will only become possible when ordinary people like us reclaim decision making power from corrupt politicians.
The good news is, the tools to do all this are already out there. A new society is within reach. All that's needed is a movement of ordinary people like us to put these tools to work in every community, in every corner of the world.
If you're done with the despair, denial, distraction and the doom scroll, if you're ready to hope again... hope with us. This is an experiment, and it won't work without you.
Please help us launch Cooperation UK.