Partner of the Week: Lamac MPC Youth Planet Laboratory Cooperative

Posted in Partner of The Week on July 3, 2020

Lamac MPC Youth Planet Laboratory Cooperative (commonly known as Coop Youth Planet – CYP) is a youth organisation under Lamac Multi-Purpose Cooperative in the Philippines. Their mission is to empower children through socio-cultural activities and economic enterprises, working to create a more progressive society. CYP reaches 3,000 children and young people per year.

Our partnership

Aflatoun is the flagship programme of CYP. The cooperative has a 5-core component programme that serves as the blueprint for how they interact with participants. They use Aflatoun and Aflateen curricula. The components include capability-building, planning and budgeting, gender equality, sustainable agricultural education, social and financial enterprise.

CYP celebrated Aflatoun Day by organising a 3-day Aflatoun Financial Education Camp where the 5-core component of Aflatoun were being integrated into all the activities. The picture shows the Aflatoun Savers reported their financial flow.

“We are thankful for Aflatoun International and the National Confederation of Cooperative for their strong support. We strive for positive change in our community by giving life-long lessons to our children and youth who are not just the leaders of tomorrow but the leaders of today. Because being young is not an excuse to not do great things”, a staff member shared with us.

Local champions, global icons

Annually, CYP Lab Coop organises the Top 10 Aflatoun Child of the Year. The competition is open to all members of CYP under School-Based Membership. Winners are chosen based on the criteria of consistency of savings (40%), the amount saved (10%), academic performance (20%), schools and community Involvement (20%) parents are saving in the coop (10%).

Winners are announced on social media during the global Aflatoun Day celebration, as a way of promoting Aflatoun to the community. “They are our local champions, but we consider them global icons,” CYP staff member shared with us.

Poster of the winners and their messages to the youth.

CYP Lab Coop also has an Aflatoun pool of trainers which consist of teachers and staffs who have participated in Aflatoun Trainer the Trainer session conducted by by National Confederation of Cooperatives.

Another activity of CYP is the Business Hub where young people are learning how to handle enterprises. This season, they diverted their production to facemasks in order to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the facemasks were donated to Aflatoun Partner Schools.

Young Farmers Cluster, part of the Young Farmers Entrepreneurship Programme. Youth are equipped with technical skills through proper trainings and then encouraged to grow vegetable production themselves. Sales from fresh produce are saved to their Aflatoun Accounts.

Interested in learning more about our partners? Read more in our Partner of the Week blogs.