CDA Promotes “Koopkapatid” Helping Scheme

The Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) is pushing for the “koopkapatid” program or big brother helping small brother cooperative partnership to level up and boost the cooperative movement.

The “koopkapatid” scheme is a collaborative effort of CDA with agencies that have programs focused on coops such as the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to strengthen micro-coops and help them graduate into the small coop category, said Leticia Cayanos of CDA-CAR.

For the DAR-CDA program, it links big brother helping small brother cooperatives to further the growth of the coop sector through more intensive partnership, collaboration, creative cooperation, and advocacy. The intention is not to compete but to strengthen the operations of primary coops.

The idea is for big brother coops to serve as mentor and the small brother as mentee willing to undergo on-the-job training to learn skills they need in managing their coops and observe and replicate practices of big brothers.

Mentors can also offer keen advice and insights on cost reduction, help in establishing organizational and operations systems, and share best practices, among others.

Cayanos bared that there are a total of 988 registered coops, of which only about 652 or 66 percent are compliant. Most of these coops (225) are located here in the province with 118 belonging to micro-coop category.

Based on CDA records, assets for small coop is  P15 million and below, medium is P100M and below, while large coop is P100M and above.

Of the registered coops in CAR, 45 percent belong to the micro-coop category meaning they have assets P3 million and below. Only five percent are large coops while medium and small are 31 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

Coops are helpful to many people because of the services they provide which  are useful in the lives of members and the community. In many cases especially in the rural areas, parents are able to send their children to college, build their houses, or start their businesses or livelihood through the loans  from cooperatives.