- KoopFabrika is a free school for people and groups wanting to launch cooperative and community economic projects. The registration period is now open. The first meeting will be held on 28 January. Olatukoop, Gezki and Lanki have been in charge of organizing the ninth edition of the Behobia-San Sebastián. The remodeling work has been left without the economic support of the Provincial Council.
The 9th edition of the KoopFabrika Cooperative Entrepreneurship School was presented on December 12 at the Egia Roofing Factory in San Sebastián. The objective of the School is to provide entrepreneurs with resources to educate in cooperative and social keys.
A number of entrepreneurs who have previously participated in this school have spoken in public. Gorka Sánchez has presented the Mazedonia design study, and the cooperatives Ainhoa Etxeberria, Marta Otegui and Saioa Royok ArropLab, which have joined the initiative. They're creative, they're entrepreneurs. In the public hearing, they have pointed out that they do their work with passion. However, creativity and passion for work do not seem to be enough to set up a cooperative. Both projects have participated in the KoopFabrika Entrepreneurship School and the members of both have underlined the support received from the school. Saioa Royo, a member of Arropía Lab, has stated that she has brought the classes to reality: to make an internal regulation, how to redirect relations with the administration, salaries, expenses… Gorka Sánchez, from the Macedonia design study, has underlined the theoretical training received in the schools, and has added that, through the accompaniment, she has contributed to bring down the whole theory.
The sessions will start on January 28 at the Tejas Factory in the Egia district
The school is free and you have to register on this website. Five training sessions will be held on transformative social economy and cooperativism, feminist and anti-racist economy, community and territorial transformation, area of work and administration, economic sustainability and financing. Following the end of the sessions in February, two collective follow-up actions will be carried out in March. In these sessions, members of the KoopFabrika peer group will help entrepreneurs move forward in the next steps in the projects.
Eight editions
Since the school was launched in 2017, 725 people, 60% women, 39% men and 1% non-binary have participated. 75 projects have been supported: In Donostia-San Sebastián (19), Beterri-Buruntza (16) throughout the region of Gipuzkoa (12), Urola Kosta (8), Oarsoaldea (7), Tolosaldea (5), Alto Deba (3), Bidasoa (3) and Goierri (1). The projects have taken various forms: cooperatives (28), associations (22), self-employed (12), other legal forms (8) and projects suspended (4).