coöp cafe: Putting Values to Work. From Shared Ideas to Collective Action
How can the values of a cooperative help us make difficult decisions, navigate conflicts, and stay connected to why we work together?

For this Coöp Café evening, de Nieuwe Meent will share experiences from building and living in our housing cooperative in Amsterdam. From the start, we defined four core values: commoning, care, sustainability, and diversity and inclusion. Over the years, we have refined them and learned to use them in practice. They have guided important decisions, while also revealing tensions and contradictions.

These tensions do not mean that our values have failed. They show that values are alive. They need to be discussed, tested, and sometimes renegotiated as circumstances change.

We’ll share moments where values shaped choices around our community, and our relationship with the neighbourhood. These are not stories of getting everything right, but of mistakes, uncomfortable conversations, changing plans, and learning.

Through a presentation, discussion, and participation exercises, we’ll explore how values can become practical tools for navigating difficult choices.

Come share your experiences, questions, doubts, and ideas. Whether you are part of a cooperative, thinking of starting one, or simply curious, we’d love to have you.

Let’s explore together what happens when values become practice!