Cooperation for liberation
WE ENVISION
a New Orleans with a strong Solidarity Economy Movement:
where Black, Brown, and Indigenous New Orleanians–fueled by the inherent brilliance, bravery and audacity of our ancestors– sustainably own our own labor and mentor each other on the collective and equitable governance of resources such as: food, care, land, and culture.
Cooperatives come from the Black and Indigenous practice of collective work to meet collective needs. Cooperation can look like community childcare, feeding one another, pooling together our resources to meet our needs, practicing mutual aid in our daily lives or in the face of a disaster, owning our own work through a cooperative business, and so on. We engage in cooperative practices in our daily lives.
As workers, we are continuously at risk of being taken advantage of by our current capitalist system, which values the product of our labor over our humanity as workers, community members, family members, and culture bearers.
Cooperative businesses and projects use practices that our communities have been using for centuries, along with the
7 Cooperative Principles to allow workers to have ownership of their work, and ultimately care for themselves and others.
Cooperation New Orleans seeks to support the creation and ongoing support of worker-owned cooperatives.
A worker-owned cooperative is a business in which the people who work for the business are the owners of the business. Unlike a non-cooperative business, there is not a single boss making all the decisions. Instead, a group of worker-owners work together to make decisions and run the business.
Click here for more information and resources put together by Cooperation New Orleans.
"Black cooperatives are actually not a new strategy, it was in cooperation that formerly enslaved people built community, and so it is no surprise that many Black communities continue to create cooperative enterprises as a means to own the development that is taking place in their neighborhoods. "
Tamah Yisrael, Founder and Steering Committee Member
Co-ops and Community
Our ecosystem is comprised of various individuals, cooperative businesses and mutual aid projects working to meet the needs of our communities. Below is a list of some of our cooperators, and where you can find them in New Orleans.
Groups listed as "TA Providers" are co-ops and movement partners that also work to provide technical assistance and support to other cooperative projects in our ecosystem.
PATOIS Film Festival
Founded in 2004 by New Orleans artists and activists, PATOIS: The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival is dedicated to nurturing the city’s human rights community, supporting the work of local organizers and organizations involved in these struggles, and providing a forum for artistic expression of local and international issues.
Project Hustle
Project Hustle is a Black, queer, hood feminist-led transformative organizing project in Southeast Louisiana. We center Black working class hustlers through people-power building, popular education, and storytelling projects that capture our creativity and ingenuity as Black women, Black femmes, and Black queer workers.
TMH Financial Solutions
TMH Financial & Management Solutions is proud to be a financial management company that helps business clients make sound financial decisions on a daily basis. Our commitment is to help businesses succeed by performing the critical accounting and bookkeeping functions needed to remain financially solvent and compliant with financial regulations.
Ujima Childcare Co-op
Ujima is providing community-led education that activates the young learner into collective action, through project-based learning, cooperative practices and Black libratory care. The Ujima Childcare Cooperative is held by organizers, educators, artists, and environmentalists who share their wealth of knowledge, to families of all structures, that centers a child’s development and prepares them to be change-makers.
Want to support a worker-owned business in New Orleans?
Find them on the map!