During the Second National Coop Congress and Third NATCCO Congress in 1996, several organizers, trainers, coop agencies, and other participants have recognized the youth’s valuable participation in cooperative development. Surely enough, most of the participants in the two events have voiced their desire to train and educate the younger leaders so that, at their age, they would be able to engage, innovate, contribute to the impact of their local organizations. Thus, in NATCCO’s pursuit of empowering the younger generation especially with their involvement in cooperatives, the agency decided to publish this handbook to help the youth recognize their personal motivations, values, and leadership styles.

The Way to Go Coop Youth Leaders Handbook is specifically crafted for those who plan to train the youth into the basics of coop engagement and leadership. It aims to assist educators into helping the youth participants recognize their talents and skills, renew their mindsets, and polish their leadership skills. The handbook is comprised of three four modules or phases, with every phase having a different topic of focus. The first two phases talks about the personal makings of a youth individual- in particular his/ her own sense of self, as well as his/ her notion of leadership, and how they should be improved. On the other hand, the latter phases tackles more of the youth’s role or niche in the cooperative in terms of their collaboration with coops and their exposure or immersion to coop operations. Each module provides a complete set of expected outcomes from the trainees and some suggested learning activities to complement the discussion.