From a Funeral to an Hospital - a process of cooperative integration
42 years ago, 10 cooperatives of our town Barquisimeto,
El Triunfo, La Salle, Kennedy, among others got together
in order to offer a funeral service.
That's the origin of our movement, a cooperative of cooperatives.
Private burials are that expensive
What can we do?
May be collecting money ?
Thus, the cooperatives of that time got together and said:
We have a problem, every time that someone dies, we have to collect money.
We should provide a permanent solution. When a neighbour dies, we have to help.
That's our way: we get together and discuss a problem.
For instance, if we agree upon new services,
outlining the possibilities we have as an organization.
Part 1: Where's the boss?
Suddenly, a new workmate remains just watching,
since no one is telling you: do this, do that.
Until you realize that there is no boss, unless we create him ourselves.
There is no hierachy.
If there's something lacking, one should take the initiative to get it.
Sometimes I see something's wrong, But wait for someone else to solve it.
So I don't care if the whole gets spoiled, I only do my job well, and that's it.
Don't care about the rest, period!
Those are the things to discuss, see? In 15 minutes we solved a problem
Hierarchy is not a written paper, it's something we carry deep within us.
Even if I have no formal power, it can pop out at any moment.
When that happens, we can discuss it, so reflection can make us change and transform.
And what do we need so that a boss is not needed?
Love
A lot of honesty and spontaneity
Being respectful to all others
Transparency helps to build trust.
Such things give us identity, respect; the chance to build trust inside the team.
None of them are isolated words, they're related.
Identity, love, transparency, respect ...
neither are attitudes of separation.
They start happening together, and when this occurs, a balance is reached.
Salary or anticipated payment?
That is what we pay us weekly,
an anticipation for what we expect to produce during the year.
It is not a workers salary, but a collective payment.
Depending on our productivity we adjust our anticipated payment.
Sometimes we can't increase it because we haven't been productive enough.
We all earn the same.
Almost... but not exactly the same.
Each one according to his needs.
Because a person may have four or five children, while another has none and earns the same.
Thus, the payment is slightly different.
Who does inventories?
We all do inventories. Who receives the produce?
All of us. Who are the cashiers?
We all do... well, not all, but most of us do.
In our many meetings we organize the rotation in our different activities.
This opens up learning possibilities.
We keep our minds open and busy,
grasping a much more global perspective.
And this way we get to know one another.
What did you do this week?
I took part in the meeting for the planning of crop production.
Then, I was coordinating supplies.
On Friday, I was cooking in the kitchen,
then working at the cashier.
Tuesday night, I had a night shift guarding the cooperative Health Center.
And now we are leaving for supplies,
I´m one of the truck drivers.
Part 2: Bus fare for a quarter
In the seventies, Cecosesola ran a bus service for Barquisimeto,
where the fare was for years 25 cents of a bolivar.
This led to a political conflict with the government of that time.
They seized by force all the buses; that was a power struggle, a political confrontation.
We rallied together with citizens associations, cultural and student groups.
They all were using our cooperative buses.
All this produced a really interesting example for grass-root organization.
Local subsidy now! Bus fare for a quarter! The people united will never be defeated!
The local government, in retaliation, seized the buses.
More than 4 months!
They destroyed the whole fleet, they stole engines, seats.
The economic pressure of the bus transport experience gave birth to the Food Fairs.
Together with agricultural cooperatives
We started selling five kilos of each product. 5 kg of onions, of carrots, of tomatoes.
There was a great community response.
Many people bought to at the El Triunfo selling place.
Based on that very successful experience, three months later we took away
the seats of one of the buses,
filled it up with produce and went to the outskirts selling vegetables.
In that life or death situation we had to generate incomes from other sources.
Only 15 of the 128 buses were operating.
Those transport workers without buses got involved in a productive activity.
The Fairs continued the community involvement, present since Transport:
Service not only for coop-members but for everyone who lives in the area.
Additionally, the farmers coops from Sanare became more and more part of the Fairs.
From the closed circle of people looking only for a funeral service
by that time the sense of identity forming one community was growing.
Part 3: The fairs
For how long have you been shopping here?
Well, around 15 years.
Since 1985
For 500 light years!
Why do you buy here?
Because everything is really fresh.
Exactly: fresh, nice.
Apart from prices, the certainty that you´ll find everything you need.
It's not only shopping, we chit-chat. It's like we're a big family.
Because here I can stretch the little money I have.
30 % Saving.
Cecosesola, who is that? Who are the owners?
Ourselves.
Each member of the cooperative.
Well, I've heard that they are many people, but I don't really know their names.
What can you tell us about task rotation? You see them working only in one place?
No, no ... What's good about them is that they get involved in everything.
Sometimes, I see them in accounting,
sometimes at the butcher's or in the kitchen.
Do they rotate shores?
Yes, of course they do.
Me, for instance, have you seen me in different activities?
Everywhere! You're just like Droopy!
Please, can you explain how works shopping here in the vegetable area?
Well, the process is ... you pick what you need.
You take a bag and start putting everything in it.
Potatoes, onions, papaya ... anything.
It's all averaged at a single price per kilo.
Then you come and weigh it here, all together.
Every product at the same price.
Where do the vegetables come from?
Every three months we gather for a crop planning meeting.
The first relationship with crop coops was with La Alianza and La Montaña.
When the cooperative movement grew in the state of Trujillo,
other groups started to get involved.
We all produce the same vegetables.
So we needed to plan and distribute everyone's share.
And we had to find ways to help the integration of new groups like San Roque in Cecosesola.
For instance, La Montaña plans to harvest 300 sacks of potatoes. And Sanare ...
Meeting: planification of sowing
From February onwards about 200 sacks a week, maybe more.
And we the same for March, from 400 to 500 sacks a month.
Around 120, or better 100.
Note keeper! 100 for San Roque.
Of course, at least 10 or 15 sacks.
Basically we plan the amount of produce that each of us will bring to the Fairs.
So the Food Fairs can really count with our produce,
avoiding to buy it in the wholesale market, where there's price speculation.
Building relationships of mutual support.
Any time we place a certain amount of produce in the Fair,
we contribute with a percentage to our mutual support fund.
Every coop participates, actually every associated organization,
not only who brings produce to the Fairs.
If we have financial problems, for instance when we need to acquire a new warehouse.
We need a loan of 23.000 US$, that's the amount our coop agreed on.
I don't know what the rest of you people think.
It's the area where we try to help each other to solve our economic problems.
Now, these solutions are a result of the way we relate to each other.
Of course we do our bit.
But now we also need the support from the community, from Cecosesola.
Los Horcones Fair closes down because of improper facilities.
Let's try to find solutions collectively.
We, from El Triunfo Coop, for example, are really close by, and we want to help.
I don't think it's only a Los Horcones' problem.
It's an issue affecting the whole community.
It's everyone's problem!
I perceive a lack of commitment.
Why couldn't we open up on Fridays and Saturdays, just outside in the street.
If we stick together as a cooperative movement, the solutions will come up.
The more we are, the more ideas arise and bring solutions.
Part 4: The Health Network
There are six cooperatives which form the cooperative health service.
There are some 40 medical specialities.
Among them laboratory, X-ray, Surgery and Alternative Therapies.
CICS stands for Integrated Cooperative Health Center.
Once started, we realized that we didn't have enough money.
But, we said: "We're such a big organization".
60 grass-root organizations.
A thousand associative workers.
20.000 members in the different cooperatives.
55.000 families who come every week to do their shopping.
Nearly all the cooperatives checked their bank accounts and inverted money in the project.
Another part of the money came from the idea of piggy banks,
informing that they would be used to buy equipment for the health center.
We asked people in the Food Fairs: "Do youhave some change for the piggy banks?"
"That's for our new Health Center."
We felt the support, a growing relationship.
Did you already contribute with the hospital?
Well, I've just given a contribution.
It's a really beautiful project with which many feel identified.
We like to contribute. It's so huge, we can´t believe it's true.
A real "gold mine": the fororo.
It's made of toasted ground corn,
with sugar, cinnamon and milk.
We'd like to remind you of the tasty and delicious fororo
at the entry of the vegetables Fair.
The income goes directly to our health funds, which we're all part of.
Apart from the Food Fairs, do you know other areas of Cecosesola? Funeral service? Health?
Everything. I'm part of them all.
Are you coop member?
I'm associated to the Kennedy Cooperative.
There's the funeral service, household appliances,
there's also the hospital being built.
And what do you know about the cooperative?
Me ... nothing. Me ... less than that!
What other areas are there in Cecosesola, Funeral and health services??
Well, yes ... the Red Cross, I have my medical insurance,
the military hospital, the public hospital here in Barquisimeto.
At the beginning of he Food Fairs task rotation was quite impossible.
At the wholesale market the companions,
spent a lot of time learning what and how to buy.
We didn't have any chance to rotate.
We hardly knew the difference between cauliflower and broccoli!
Nowadays here we're in a similar situation.
While we learn how things work in the health service, we can't rotate all the time.
First, we must get to know this well.
Afterwards, maybe we can start rotation.
So this has made us rethink how we relate to each other.
Not all of us are doctors, not all of us know how to take blood samples.
In the health area we have a challenge:
To find out how we all can learn from each other,
sharing, without ranks, no hierarchy.
We want to build up a different relationship with doctors, not only pay them for a service,
but creating a closer relationship where mutual confidence can spread.
But In our experience that has been truly difficult.
They need to have a global perspective: Our so called "WE"-feeling.
That´s not easy for them.
When we explain them our way of working, and that we all participate in meetings,
some doctors say they prefer to sit on a desk waiting for patients.
They need to have quite a global view of the place they are working at.
So, that's what´s nice here, in this cooperative movement:
Our profession is honored, valued.
Part 5: Here we don't vote.
How many times have we voted, here in the Food Fairs?
Never ever.
In many ways, voting splits us apart.
There's a group which agrees and another one that doesn´t.
The consent decisions.
It's a matter of discovering there are other ways of making decisions.
When a decision is needed, we do it based on information.
Information is what keeps us moving, without it we stay still, not knowing where to move.
For instance, many coops come several times a week
to the warehouse for supplies.
We always exchange the news.
So that the information flow is fast and widespread.
It's a permanent interchange, everybody can get the information.
We are permanently finding ways so that we all get information.
That strengthens the trust among us.
You must also move to get the information.
What happened in the meetings I have missed?
Sometimes there's information that should be known but it's not passed.
These situations give us the chance to reflect and analyze ourselves.
The flow of information together with collective criterion making decisions effective.
So two, three or four people can make a decision which  based on the criterion -
involves the entire organization.
That makes it really flexible.
People say, that a consent organization paralyzes when somebody disagrees.
What we do is construct consent around collective criterion and share information.
This facilitates decision-making anytime, anywhere.
Hundreds of people, based in discussed collective criterion, do that permanently.
When there are difficulties in reaching an agreement,
there must be a slow  maybe  long process of discussion.
But that's really an exception.
Criteria, criteria ...
Collective criterion ...
Collective criterion is a way of establishing discipline in our activities.
That's precisely why we agree on criterion:
the time of arrival, our shifts as cashiers, the procedures in receiving merchandise ...
But there's a moment in which we have to reflect them.
We're thinking that criterion are rules and not a temporary result of our meetings.
Other criterion are more of a feeling.
The birthday cake today, that is a collective feeling.
But there's not a rule that every birthday we have to bring a cake.
Decision making has to be made responsibly.
As we're not perfect, we sometimes make mistakes.
When we make mistakes, we must take responsibility for their consequences.
If there's money missing from the cash register in my shift
- even if you feel that your work was okay -
you have to pay for it.
If we don't do that, the productivity of the entire Fair suffers the consequences.
I don't see happening any more the following:
Formerly, when someone had problems as cashier, she or he had to stop for a while.
I won't work just to pay the money missing from my cashier shifts.
In my case we're talking about 120 US$.
It happened at the vegetables cashier.
If she continues there, it's like make her fall even more.
Part 6: What is Cecosesola?
We're not civil servants, we are not a social enterprise,
we are a community organizational process.
Well, in the first place, to me, Cecosesola is a family.
When I come here everyone says hi and hugs.
They treat me: "Hey Sasha, 'cool baby', how's it hanging?"
My sons and daughters joined the coop, then my grandchildren.
So a big part of my family is also part of this community organization.
Getting here is like coming home.
I mean, we're all equal, that's what´s nice about it.
It has been like a school for life, day after day learning lots of things.
We're as well learning all the time, as teaching others what we've learned.
It's not like some of us are teaching and others are learning.
We're all looking for solutions together, looking for ideas.
Our "fishing together", we progressively adapt to the situations that come along.
Cecosesola is a part of life, of what I live every day, of who I am.
What we live together deep inside.
It is a really gorgeous feeling.
Sharing more and more every day ... in Cecosesola.
Most testimonies were filmed spring 2010 in the many meetings that are weekly held, in the different areas of Cecosesola.