YOUTH LEADERSHIP

In 1989, leaders around the world in the United Nations made a historic commitment to children with an international agreement. This agreement guaranteed every child, no matter who or where they were, the same rights to things like education, health and happiness.

It is called the United Nations Rights of the Child.

It is essential for all organizations – and movements – to reach out to the youth to ensure that the next generation will carry on its vision and ideals.

Nothing is more saddening than when a movement loses steam because of its aging leadership.

For the cooperative movement and the NATCCO Network, we are ensuring that the new generation will find cooperatives relevant in their lives and to society by training them for leadership. The next generation will be the ones to receive the baton, but they must first 1) love the cooperatives, 2) actively engage as co-operators, and 3) be prepared for leadership positions.

The NATCCO leadership has noted that many of the leaders of primary co-operatives are aged 40 and older. “In fifteen to twenty years, if our co-ops will not take care of the youth, the current crop of  leaders will go and there will be no one to take the leadership helm of these co-ops!” NATCCO Chief Executive Officer, Sylvia Paraguya, said at the 2018 Cooperative Summit in Davao City, which was attended by some 9,000 co-op leaders from all over the country.

Aflatoun Program Framework And Dynamics

NATCCO established the Aflatoun Program in 2006 to train school teachers to include financial literacy in their school lessons for them to teach, inform young people on how to handle money, and encourages young people to join and be excited about their cooperative.

The framework for the Aflatoun Program is

• Partnering with well-managed cooperatives,

• Reaching out to local schools in the area,

• Training teachers,

• Urging students to deposit in the local cooperative while training them how to plan for life and contribute to their community,

• Every week, a collector from the cooperative will collect the deposits of the kids, and the amount will be deposited in a special account.

As of end-2025, the Aflatoun Youth Program registered the following figures:

Participating Co-ops:            159
Children Reached:                 1,568,010
Partner Schools:                    2,175
Teachers Trained:                  8,566
Children with Savings:          510,737
Total Savings:                        Php 639.9 Million ( $10.85 Million)

These numbers have made NATCCO’s implementation model in the Philippines the showcase of Aflatoun International.

Youth Inclusion

The NATCCO Network conducts the NATCCO Cooperative Youth Congress every two years, where delegates from participating cooperatives elect the members of the NATCCO Youth Committee. The Chairperson of the NYC is designated the ‘Youth Representative’, and occupies one seat in the NATCCO Board of Directors, which is the highest decision-making and policy-making body in the federation, after from the General Assembly.

The 2023 Youth Congress resolved the following for all cooperatives to implement:

• Inclusion of Youth in Cooperative Governance. “Primary co-ops are to allocate a seat in the board for the youth. The youth representative will be elected by the members of the laboratory cooperative.”

• Co-ops are to “Adopt the Aflatoun Program for Youth Development.” This is seen to reinforce the  brand of the primary cooperative.

•  “Partnership with the Department of Education and reinforce Existing Relationships with other Government agencies and Civic Organizations.” The NATCCO currently implements the Aflatoun Program in public schools through an existing partnership.

• Enhance the Technological Capability of the Youth in the Cooperatives. The Youth Congress elaborated that “Technology continues to drive change in society. We need to upskill the youth for them to be knowledgeable with the recent technological advancements.”

• “Advocate for 17 United Nation Sustainable Development Goals with focus on No Poverty, Gender  Equality, Quality Education and Climate Action”

•  “Encourage primary cooperatives to allocate budget for the youth.” The rationale is that “It has been a recurring concern with the partner affiliates that there is a limited budget to conduct and participate in youth activities.”

• “Revisit election code if we can allow a cooperative with an existing representation in other committees to run for a position in the youth committee.”

The logic is that “Cooperatives with established youth programs and willingness to serve in the youth committee is very limited. For the past two congresses, we appointed youth committee members. This is strictly for youth committee and not for those vying for youth board representation.”

Organizing the Youth Congress every two years is one way that the NATCCO Network pushes its advocacy that all co-ops recruit members from among the youth, develop young leaders, and have succession planning to ensure long-term sustainability of cooperatives.

All cooperatives intent on participating in NATCCO’s Afatoun Program must be members of the NATCCO Stabilization Fund System.