Building community from the inside and out - cooperative education and development for prisoners and returning citizens

Mary Sutton’s work with returning citizens is rooted in her own experience, sparked in part by a move to the West Coast to support a friend in prison there. “I got involved in the network of folks who were around California fighting prison and jail expansion in Los Angeles,” Mary said. Looking for a new direction, she found a great match in the Master’s in Urban Sustainability at Antioch University. “This was at the height of prison overcrowding,” she added; “I saw the lack of will and organization in the local, city, and state governments to create alternatives in the community and reinvest in the community.”

Thus, Collective REMAKE was born. Originally the capstone of Mary’s graduate studies, this social cooperative is committed to building an eco-system that includes a network of co-operative economic development, inclusive support systems, and sustainable healing communities. Designed to support the creation of worker-owned businesses and other kinds of cooperatives, Collective REMAKE recognizes that co-ops are a pathway to sustainable economies and community empowerment, providing opportunities to individuals who have been pushed out of the mainstream economy due to race, sex, class, gender identity, age or ability–including formerly incarcerated people.

“Cooperatives offer a democratic business structure that can engage individuals who are discriminated against in the job market because of a criminal record,” said Mary, who now leads design and management and serves as board co-chair. “The unemployment and underemployment rate in the Black community in LA is over 50 percent. For former prisoners, opportunities to work for a living wage are few. Worker-owned businesses and other cooperatives can ignite a local economy in communities that are disenfranchised due to the loss of living wage jobs, defunded social programs, deteriorating schools, over policing and high rates of incarceration.”

Since the beginning of 2024, Collective REMAKE has twice run its Co-operative Education and Development (CAED) series of nine workshops with support from the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF). With more than 20 participants so far–the majority of whom have been directly impacted by incarceration–and four trainees co-facilitating, the program concludes with a certificate of completion. From there, participants can choose to move into Collective REMAKE’s Train-the-Trainer program. An Advanced CEAD workshop is available to teams who have a business concept and are ready to move forward and explore feasibility.

“Collective REMAKE has changed my life!” one participant said. Another added, “It was enlightening and refreshing to have a model that actually considered the workers and the benefits of being in business.” CDF agrees that there is tremendous potential to change lives and build stronger communities by bringing cooperative education and development to people who are incarcerated or have experienced incarceration.

Another program that has benefited from CDF’s support is L.A. Co-op Lab. Established in 2015 to build capacity for a more equitable and democratic economy, L.A. Co-op Lab advances worker ownership in Los Angeles as a way to push back against inequality, gentrification and the gig economy. The program helps people who are often excluded from good jobs to collectively create their own and meet community needs.

With a focus on education, coaching, financing and network-building, L.A. Co-op Lab offers online and in-person classes and workshops to provide groups with the tools they need to create the building blocks of worker cooperatives guided by principles of “radical inclusion” that ensure that resources target those who historically have never fully benefited from the economy.

Among their cohorts are currently incarcerated individuals. A recent project supported by CDF created a series of bilingual booklets, posters and pamphlets to make the existing content of L.A. Co-op Lab’s “How to Start a Worker Cooperative” course modules available in a simplified paper format.

Called “foldables” because all are made of a single piece of folded paper, the materials are simply and thoughtfully designed. The organization hosts folding parties for families to come together to assemble and fold the materials in preparation for distribution–providing an intergenerational community activity with purpose.

The project ultimately needed modification to make it appropriate for the strict rules that apply to materials provided to incarcerated individuals–all content was required to be in black and white with specific dimensions–a “plain vanilla” version, as they call it. The folded, colored versions are provided to the many other communities served.

According to L.A. Co-op Lab board secretary and co-founder Gilda Haas, the foldables are “playful, cheap, low-tech, family friendly–and a faithful version of a successful course.” She added, “It matters to most of the aspiring cooperators with whom we work that the look and form of the material is interesting and attractive and unusual.”

Support from CDF made a big difference to L.A. Co-op Lab. In addition to targeting their service community, it developed their capacity, potential and reputation for worker cooperative education. Community members can be introduced to cooperatives in, as Gilda put it, a “bite-sized” way. “Having accessible, tactile materials that you can hold in your hand was really desired and appreciated after a few years of online-only learning during Covid,” she added. Seasoned trainers and educators say that the foldables were greatly appreciated as support for framing complicated things in a simple way.

“None of this would have been possible,” Gilda concludes, “without the support of the Cooperative Education Fund, which took a chance on this project that allowed us to prototype, test and refine what is now a permanent resource of our cooperative education arsenal.”

The accessibility provided and empowerment facilitated by these organizations hold special significance for communities that include returning citizens and currently incarcerated folks, among the most marginalized members of our society looking for new opportunities and second chances that include meaningful engagement in their communities.

A reflection from one Collective REMAKE participant sums it up best: “Today I learned that we can work together–there is no right or wrong way; everyone has a voice. This is what makes us become one.”