A group of 30 people from different initiatives of the social economy in the United Kingdom, representing 12 organizations working in projects or initiatives of the third sector and social transformation, visited from November 22 to 24 16 services managed by Suara Cooperativa to learn about its model in the accompaniment of people in the areas of homelessness, elderly, children, young children and mental health.
This visit is part of the Sharing Experiences initiative, which the cooperative has been weaving since 2020 with the E3M group, which includes different companies and foundations working in the third sector.
This Wednesday has had the official reception of the different companies and foundations at the headquarters of Suara Cooperativa in Barcelona, which has had the participation of Juli Silvestre, general director of Social Economy, the Third Sector and Cooperatives of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Silvestre spoke about the importance of promoting the cooperative model and the social and solidarity economy throughout the territory, as well as in all labor sectors. For this reason, he recalled that one of the pending challenges is to approve the draft bill on the social and solidarity economy in Catalonia.
For his part, Tomàs Llompart, co-director general of Suara Cooperativa, highlighted the opportunity that comes with being able to share these experiences between the two countries to learn and share experiences to challenges in the field of the third sector such as work methodologies, business models, the application of innovation and technology to provide solutions to the third sector or the attraction of talent.
"It is a pleasure to be here today for all of you and to be able to share these spaces. Sharing and cooperating is one of the foundations of our business model because we are convinced that it is the key to transform and improve the welfare of people," said Llompart.
An opinion shared by Jonathan Bland, from E3M, who was very interested in learning about the organizational model of worker cooperatives such as Suara's, where the employees are members of the organization and therefore its owners. "We are excited to be able to share this learning exchange with Suara Cooperativa," said Bland, who added: "We are looking forward to learning more about the activity of Suara Cooperativa and the social economy in general in Catalonia. An important learning in the current context in the UK".
The event was also attended by Maroa Teixidor, director of the Clade Group, Guillem Llorens, co-president of the Federation of Worker Cooperatives of Catalonia, and Mònica Vázquez, director of People at Suara Cooperativa.
Visit of the services
This Thursday and Friday, the delegation will visit different projects and services managed by Suara Cooperativa in the provinces of Barcelona, Tarragona and Girona.
In detail, the companies and foundations that have come from the UK that have come belong to different sectors of social transformation work: Co-operative Party, Locala, Sirona care & health and Stone King, from the field of care and care for the elderly; Big Society Capital, Cranstoun, P3 Charity, Quo Vadis Trust, working with homelessness situations; LEYF, Midcounties co-perative, Bryson Care, dedicated to the health field; and, finally, the latter, Bryson care together with Bryson energy, Career Connect and P3 Charity, accompanying adolescents and young people.
As part of this exchange of experiences, a group of 29 Suara Cooperativa employees traveled to the United Kingdom at the end of October, where they visited third sector projects in London, Bristol, Manchester and Belfast.
