Building a future where aspirations thrive through co-operation.

VISION is the Co-operative College’s new youth empowerment project that ignites young people’s passion to tackle the issues they care about, through the lens of co-operative history, identity, and values.

The project is flexible, lasting between five and ten weeks, dependent on the needs of the young people, and can be tailored to a range of ages, from 12 and up. The young learners are empowered to collectively choose the overall focus of their project, and each week, they will use a different co-operative value to help explore their chosen topic. Adopting this student-centred approach places young people at the heart of the learning and decision-making process, and encourages the development of essential life skills such as communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving.

It’s helped me express myself more and helped me listen to other people.

VISION attendee Dec 2023

While learning about the co-operative business model, VISION supports the development of life and employability skills, as well as raising young people’s aspirations and building their potential for success in education and work. In addition to exploring co-operation, the project also links to the wider-reaching UN Green Skills and Sustainable Development Goals.

The project has helped me become more kind, more confident, stay positive and learn about self-responsibility.

VISION attendee Dec 2023

VISION is engaging and action focused, incorporating activities designed to encourage reflection and application of learning.

Dependent on location, the Co-operative College’s experienced tutors can facilitate the project, or we can provide in-depth facilitator training to empower others to run projects in their area. Cohorts of young learners will be identified through partnerships with schools, colleges and youth groups.

If you’d like to learn more about how your organisation can get involved with our youth empowerment work, email [email protected] today!