Last week we headed 60km south of Da Nang to a small town called Tam Ky to deliver a 3 day workshop to coop leaders from the surrounding provinces. This workshop was delivered in partnership between CECI and SOCODEVI. 
SOCODEVI is a network of Canadian cooperatives who assist with cooperative development in many developing countries. They have selected cooperatives to work with throughout Vietnam and asked if I would work with them to deliver a workshop on sustainable cooperative development and marketing. Together using their existing resources and the resources I have gathered, we developed a 3 day workshop which will be used all over the country and hopefully delivered by Vietnamese cooperative support workers. We had several participants from the local cooperative alliance and department of agriculture and rural development attend the workshop with the intention that they will be able to deliver this material to the cooperatives themselves in the future.
SOCODEVI is a network of Canadian cooperatives who assist with cooperative development in many developing countries. They have selected cooperatives to work with throughout Vietnam and asked if I would work with them to deliver a workshop on sustainable cooperative development and marketing. Together using their existing resources and the resources I have gathered, we developed a 3 day workshop which will be used all over the country and hopefully delivered by Vietnamese cooperative support workers. We had several participants from the local cooperative alliance and department of agriculture and rural development attend the workshop with the intention that they will be able to deliver this material to the cooperatives themselves in the future. It was an excellent experience for me to work with cooperatives from different areas and to compare their issues and challenges with those of the cooperatives in Da Nang. Of course they had a lot of similar issues such as aging membership, difficulty catering to the new needs of the farmers, competition from the private sector, bureaucracy,loss of land due to urbanisation and lack of management capacity.
Several of the cooperatives had started successfully offering composting services to the members. This is something which would benefit the citizens and cooperatives in Da Nang. Currently, there is no waste management system and the farmers are in need of clean soil. Hopefully we will be able to arrange and visit to one of these cooperatives or at least make the contact so that several of the Da Nang cooperatives can look into offering this service in their own communities. Few Highlights from the workshop.
As an icebreaker one morning, a few of the cooperative leaders offered to sing for the group!
(click on the link to see a video of one of the coop leaders singing!)
As a gift for facilitating the workshop, the vice-president of the cooperative alliance gave me an ostrich egg. Apparently very delicious!! I have yet to try it!
(click on the link to see a video of one of the coop leaders singing!)
As a gift for facilitating the workshop, the vice-president of the cooperative alliance gave me an ostrich egg. Apparently very delicious!! I have yet to try it!
The participants! 
