In Wisconsin, we say "utes", but nevertheless, the good people of Saskatchewan have done an incredible amount of work about their youths. In 2007 at the Congress , we learned about a unique project on sex education that was aimed primarily at the at-risk (read impoverished) first nation peoples. This involved a community center and the public health department.Today, we heard about the efforts on the part of co-operatives to deal with generational issues. The depopulation of Rural Saskatchewan (and the prairies in general) is a very real issue. It is also happening in the prairies the United States. As jobs left these rural towns to foreign countries or to re-align along the new supply lines of highways and airports instead of rail, the jobs left. In addition, as the work of rural America (Canada and the US) has become more mechanized the jobs available for young men and women has also disappeared. Of course, the young leaving for greener pastures is a natural part of life, but the difference here is that they take with the the ability to sustain the rural community and its aging population. We aren't talking about a 20% of the kids going off to seek their fortune (or just because they don't want to do farm work), but larger amounts and even if they aren't leaving, they still don't have available work (or the type of work) to support the community. This puts greater stress on the government to provide services without a tax base and can end up creating a vicious circle that could cost the elderly their homes. Of course, unemployed (or underemployed) youth can create their own set of problems as they play the hand dealt to them and this can create even more stress on the community through depression, drug abuse, and crime.The first presentation was byand was entitled "Sustaining Rural Communities". He is from the. Hamm asked "What makes your "community" home to you?" He looked at the connection between cooperative values and the sense of community. One of his questions: "how might stronger connections between youth and adults affect co-operatives?" He considered three areas: rural youth migration and mobility, understanding the social economy, and creating the context (the loss of industry/farming jobs). In terms of connection to co-operatives, his study examined the rural co-operatives of Alberta, determined if the younger generation was aware of co-operatives, and examined how the current situation might create new opportunities for youth and co-operatives.Connection place is a critical part of this study. In addition, how social connections and networks in rural communities enhance youth engagement and create opportunities. They conducted the research using on-line surveys, focus groups, individual structured interviews and policy document analysis. They found that youth have a very strong connection to their communities (a connection to the land, ties to family, community resources, and a core group of friends (people who "get me") and a reliance on faith. People would return for a "dream job" but how can those be created?Countering these forces are the direct message that youth receive from school, the media, and their own experience. That message is to "leave". This message needs to be turned around to encourage people to "return". This can be done, perhaps, through co-operative structures that create intergenerational activities and information about local opportunities.I was thinking that worker co-operatives could easily create decent jobs in these communities providing goods and services, manufacturing, or even regional niche markets.of Quentin Burdick Center for Co-operatives presented his work on creating a new generation of co-operators by engaging the high schools of North Dakota. His motivation comes from the pending retirement of the so-called "baby boom" generation. Anyone who has been to a co-operative conference in the upper midwest of the United States sees this problem quite directly. In addition, McKee saw the general need to improve co-operative literacy of future members and improving that among the Executive Directors and their boards and finally between that of the policy makers and community leaders.McKee wanted to see what effect curriculum would have on co-op attitudes. His team looked at the large amount of information on education and co-operative education. They considered Bloom's Taxonomy , Powell's structure and content, and even the USDA Rural Development work.Without going into all of the details, they tested their hypothesis by inviting North Dakota teachers to participate. They held a two-day training session with eight teachers. They developed a lesson plan and then the teachers brought it into their classroom. My notes get a little fuzzy here. There was an increase in general appreciation of co-operatives by the students. In general, it was successful result; however, it may not have had enough participants to be significant. In any event, Prof. McKee has made the course an open-source. You can download it from the Center' website or hit this link: Co-operative Curriculum. They seem to be focused towards the Agriculture co-ops, but this is still a neat idea. McKee noted that there was some reluctance on the part of teachers as it would cause them to have to amend or change their lesson plans.The last presentation came fromof the(home of the Centre for Co-operatives ). She discussed the work of the Northern Saskatchewan Trappers Association Co-operative (hit the link and go to the page for the study, not the coop). The primary mission of the co-op is to be sustainable, engage aboriginal youth and build human capacity through regaining traditional knowledge. This project integrates traditional trapper work and co-operative governance. It promotes member participation, learning and cultural development. It reconnects generations. This last bit is important as this reconnection has also helped the at-risk youth find themselves. The rate of suicide among this group is quite high and part of the idea of this co-operative was to provide a connection to these youth who might otherwise fall into depression. Becoming a cooperative has given trackers, Dr. Findlay noted, another "language" along with that of sustainable development and their livelihood of trapping. This, in turn, helped to re-tell the story on trapping in lieu of the colonial legacy and voice--the Cree don't have a "word" for trapping, the word that they use (Pinchowil) means "making a living" in English. Pre-contact notions refer to the idea of sustainability, not growth. Part of this project involved forcing the government to respect the treaties and protecting their right to "make a living". The youth of this community have a higher incarceration rate and tend to receive longer sentences than the English counter parts. Canada, despite its "niceness", is the world's largest incarcerator of youth and #3 for per capita incarceration (after the United States and New Zealand). This co-operative works with at-risk youth by teaching them the traditions and customs of trapping. They do this in a co-operative context by creating (my notes are a bit fuzzy here as well) trap-lines which I think are autonomous work teams and consist of elders and youth by design. The effect of this co-operative on this population has been amazing: youth involved in this program had a 50% less chance of incarceration and an 85% lower chance of suicide.As with the project on sex education, the trapper's co-op shows something very neat about co-operative in the Prairies of Canada. They see social problems and think "how can we use a co-operative or mutual model to address this problem?" The more common approach in most areas tends to be to either use the police or social workers to effect change. What a difference! Using the co-operative model allows people to organically change their culture. It is the basic message of teaching people to fish and feeding them for a lifetime. Rather than the top-down, judgmental and elitism of social workers, politicians and the apparatus of the state effecting change through the system which (despite the best intentions of the social workers) only perpetuates oppression and leads to a population that becomes incarcerated in their minds and hearts whether or not they live behind physical bars.I finished this workshop feeling pretty upbeat. To see such great activity among the co-operative world in terms of engaging the next generation was fantastic. Even more to see the success and willing to share the models made be believe even more in the Co-operative Difference. Now the question will be to see how we can build off of this great work.