Present: Dana, Michelle, Claudia, Cheryl

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  • Update from Dana

    • Reworking PCC website

    • Probably be launched sometime end of April, early May

    • Slowly build on website to add resources, tools, kit, etc

    • Also been doing some co-design work - MIchelle and Dana travelled to work with SEWA in India

    • Now starting to talk to other partners around the world

    • Goal of codesign - gather needs that each coop has in terms of digital tools and the platform, what your desires and needs are, and start to do some design and codesign with members of the coop around that tool

    • Due to limited scope, we want to do as much as we can, so we’re trying to find areas of commonality between the coops - if there’s a tool that all the coops say yes we need this, we’ll work on that

    • We’re thinking big in terms of what we need, and scoping down 

    • We’re hopeful it’ll go beyond the 2 years, and we’ll then have more resources to dedicate to it

  • Rethink - where you’re at, what you are up to, how can we collaborate on co-design?

    • Where we’re at now

      • Some women want to work as a child caretaker, they have to start training before they can work in Hamburg

      • Difficult for them to get access to that training

      • Refugees, childcare - big problem, we’re working on this topic - now we can finally start this training

      • After doing this training (short), they can start to work

      • Can get some orders from the City of Hamburg

      • City of Hamburg is paying women to care for children

      • About 10 women who would like to start with us - refugee women, and german child caretakers too

      • They all need to have their own company

      • We thought about getting German women into our cooperative as well

      • Mixed refugee and german women

      • Easier for us to tell the Hamburg authorities about this, easier to get German women into the project too

      • We have german child care takers who have been doing this work for a long time, so they know what they need - so we can ask them what’s really important to have

      • We can also ask City of Hamburg on what they prefer, on what this tool should be, and ask the parents too

        • Dana

          • That’s interesting to think of, do you think City of Hamburg has different needs from the women?

          • They are calling / writing emails, we can put things into the tool or we can leave them out - it’s not necessary, it works without tools

          • What they’re asking for - when women are ill or can’t come, they need someone to go do the work

          • This is an important part of the tool to ask - who has time, who can take over

          • City of Hamburg is taking on this type of problem, but they don’t have any tool

      • Dana - what is the city working on right now?

        • Claudia - that’s what they’re working on right now - they’ve applied for money from the ministry to work on this problem

        • Dana - are they looking to build something?

        • Claudia - I don’t think so, they use phone or email or whatsapp

      • Dana - would it make sense to have more than one session?

        • City

        • German women

        • Refugee women

        • Parents

        • In the scope of what we can do, should we have separate sessions or do it together? Do you have thoughts about that?

          • Claudia - There are some really interested people right now, we can ask them - maybe 10 people right now - people who know what they’re talking about

          • Dana - as long as someone’s done some of the work - they might know what they want and need - could be good to have a broad range - those who have been around a long time, those who are native, those who are refugees, etc

      • Dana - how do they schedule themselves right now?

        • Mostly by phone right now

      • Dana - do they work out of their own homes?

        • Some at their home, or at homes of their children, or special rooms where they care

  • Embedded co-design

    • Dana - we put together suggested structure, suggested activities, and hand it off to the coop themselves to run the session

    • Good for leadership to come from the community themselves

    • We’ve created facilitation guides

    • We can have back and forth with you - if we find that something doesn't work, we can change it

    • Later we can talk about recruiting participants, how many people, etc - that’s what we’re getting started on now

    • There’s a budget - $4000 USD for each partner for the codesign process

      • We want to make sure participants are compensated 

• Next step

• For us to send you some documentation on things we’re thinking of for the codesign

• Maybe we can meet again and talk through some of that

• If there are any members who want to join they can come too

• Claudia - is there something we can already test?

  • Dana - there isn’t really anything yet

  • It would be interesting to get things on the feedback too

  • So once we have the website up, it will be interesting to get some feedback on that

• Michelle - we did look at Loomio, which is a governance tool for coops

  • Interestingly, it was very quickly that it was not useful for them and their needs, but it might be something interesting for you guys

  • Dana - yeah I wonder if there are other tools to show too

    • In india, the idea of a scheduling tool was there as well

    • We also started to look at basic tools, like google calendar and how can that be used to support that need

    • There may be other tools too - if we have a sense of some of those needs

• Michelle - we’re trying to stress only using tech if it makes sense

  • We’re not trying to force it if it doesn’t make sense

  • With SEWA, they were happy using Whatsapp doing governance

  • With cataki, they built an app themselves - they’re connecting people who have things to recycle with those who can collect it - so that’s a slightly different use from what you’d need

  • Some of that tech might overlap, but I don’t want it to have a big stretch to make sense

  • Rather start with things that are pain points, that would make your life amazing, and see what that is

  • We have a few timeframes

    • We’re looking at long timeframe too

    • We want to build this Platform Coop - platform, as well as tools, that are customizable, so we want to collect as much info as possible that feeds into both long term and short term

    • In the past, we’ve worked on something called Collections space - meant for museums and galleries to replace their proprietary software

      • First, we find proprietary software and chunk it all together - and slowly we replace it

• Claudia - so great, we can look at pain points and prioritize them

• Dana - Some of the other things that have come up is…

  • A marketing website

    • Some way to promote themselves

  • Education and training - learning commons

    • Maybe create instructional videos

  • Desire to connect with others in the coop on a regular basis

    • Email can work, there are other ways to do that as well

  • Idea of voting and governance - tools for doing that

  • Do any of these Rethink might want?

    • Claudia - yeah

    • I tried to set up a meeting quite soon, to ask for all these things - discuss what would be really interesting to have - what should be there, what would really help

    • Dana - we could also put together a list of things that have come up for other coops - Claudia - yep

• Recruiting - do you think that will be challenging or are people pretty engaged?

  • I think there are some people who.. Maybe the city of Hamburg can give some money into it - they are eager for these tools

  • Maybe we can talk with them

  • I’ll be at Republika in Berlin, there are lots of people who might be interested in helping us and supporting us

  • Republika is a digital convention 

• Dana - we just spoke with the Cooperative Life

  • They do a lot of home care, aging care, and we were talking with them about creating a brief survey - maybe 3 questions that get at generally what are your needs, what do you wish to have, and then very briefly explaining the project and asking if you’d be interested in participating

  • Do you think that would be useful?

  • Its more formal, or could be more useful to have a regular meeting

  • Claudia - we can ask some people with a survey, and others by discussing these things

    • Maybe we can use a survey for the parents, because discussing with the parents - that would make up some… I have no idea what they want to have - might be very diff from people from the coop

    • Dana - what do you think parents might want?

      • Maybe they want a map of where the caregivers are?

      • Claudia - daycare always have the same children - once you have chosen, it would be with the same women

      • So it would just be that first time

      • Women care for more than one? Yes - up to 5

    • Dana - not sure if the tools serve the parents

      • At SEWA, we were focused on their scheduling 

      • There’s always that question - what does the customer need? For a marketing site, etc

      • The parents are sort of the customers of the coop - but our focus has been more on the needs of the coop members

      • Claudia - I think we should ask them too, maybe there’s something that makes a lot of sense that we haven’t thought about before

      • Would be useful for the City of Hamburg 

        • We can start with City of Hamburg who gives money, and then we’d like to have others too - so they (coop members?) can get more money

        • And then parents can probably do private without the city and they can pay more - so I think it’s really interesting to have the parents too - booking privately

        • Claudia - There’s a law - city of hamburg has to provide childcare

        • But there are less women who do childcare

        • So some of them are paying more to get a place for their children

        • So it’s a mixed structure - that could be really helpful to have something special for these women or families who would be willing to pay more

        • Dana - when they pay more, how does that work?

        • Claudia - in the city, they’re paying

        • Outside, there are different rules

        • WIthin the city of Hamburg, if you’d like to have some musical training, or some language training, you can book / search for other women who can provide this and you pay more

        • So daycare, but education and some training for the children as well

        • The women we’re working with, they can provide special things - they can offer Arab as a language skill, or something else

      • Dana - Oh I see how if we had a platform where those offerings are listed

  • Dana - How do women find out about rethink?

    • Claudia - Well we have a good networking, we’re connected with a lot of projects where refugee women are

    • The women we work with did some German language school

    • We are located in a place where just refugee projects are hosted

    • So there are lots of people knowing us, know what we do, and the women can ask for training or whatever

    • They can look into the work, they can join the German child care taker and see - know something about the work

  • Dana - how did you come to start Rethink?

    • Claudia - I founded the coop 2 years ago - we are a coop as well

    • A think tank for social innovation

    • Which is why we thought about coop

    • Especially for child care taker, women have to have their own company, and its tricky to have your own company even if you’re german

    • To handle all the money things, the finance, and that’s why we thought - well a coop is the best idea for these kinds of things - you dont have to know all these things on your own, we can share with someone who knows the finance, the invoice, everything

    • So it’s really good solution I think

    • But coop in germany is kind of tricky too, because we have special system in germany - its top down, its expensive to have your own coop - and actually nobody informs you about coops, how they work - its hard work

    • Workers buyout - something when you do have a company, and you don’t find a manager and you can’t find someone who wants to run the company, instead of closing they sell to the workers

    • This concept isn’t known in Germany

    • This is really common in Italy

    • We try to establish this in Germany - because we’ve forgotten everything about coops here

    • It’s actually invented here

    • In italy there are 80000, in Germany there’s 8000

    • Half the coops aren’t real coops - they do other stuff, there isn’t participation at all

  • Dana - it’ll be interesting to talk about the learning commons and website

    • Right now it’s pretty centred on the US, but we want to expand that so its useful in other places too

    • All these laws in different places - hopefully we’ll be able to build specific information to specific countries

  • Dana - do you have regular meetings with the coop?

    • Twice a month, monthly

• Timing - May or June to do co-design

  • Claudia - There are lots of things unsure - they do have to start now with the training

  • We can help with the design in the meantime, they don’t have to complete training for that

  • It would be good to ask them without being fully experienced

  • So I think we can start with the design

To-do for IDRC team:

• For us to send you some documentation on things we’re thinking of for the codesign

• Some survey questions - maybe just for the parents? 

• Then have another meeting to talk through that content

To-do for Claudia:

• To ask around through discussion to collect needs

• Try to find some dates to meet - we have a meeting in the next 3 weeks - it won’t be parents, but maybe we can ask them separately too