DATES FOR NEXT
YEAR!
September 7 - 13, 2014
Mondragon Seminar and Tour
2013 Mondragon Seminar Brochure
Mondragon Report
2012
Carl Davidson's
Blog from Mondragon 2010
Georgia Kelly's
Huffington Post Article on Mondragon
Click here for Georgia Kelly video on
Mondragon
Click here to Register.
Or, call
Praxis Peace Institute is
organizing its fifth 5-day workshop/seminar with the Mondragon Cooperatives in
the Basque country of Spain. The purpose of the seminar is to learn about
worker owned businesses from the leading consortium of cooperatives in the
world.
The Mondragon Cooperatives were
founded in 1955 and now encompass 120 businesses and employ about 86,000
worker-owners. Mondragon is a highly successful cooperative model with nearly
60 years of proven success. They have established research centers, bank and
credit unions, a university with several campuses, youth cooperatives, and
small to large businesses. In June 2007, the Educational Director of the
Mondragon Cooperatives, Mikel Lezamiz, spoke at the Praxis Peace Institute
conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Due to the interest generated at that
conference, we decided to collaborate with Mondragon in offering an in-depth
educational opportunity for those who want more information on how to create
cooperatives in their businesses and communities.
Who
Should Participate:
Green business leaders, educators, community leaders,
journalists, environmentalists, business leaders, and all those who have an
opportunity to make use of the Mondragon model in projects based in their
communities or businesses. This program is a unique opportunity to learn
cooperative models of business organization and to see first hand how they work
over a long period of time. The seminar will include 5 days of presentations
and tours of Mondragon businesses. Praxis Peace Institute will also host a day
of discussion and brainstorming about how these ideas can be useful in our
communities back home and how we can find support for cooperative business
ventures.
Presentations include
The history, culture, and ethics
of the Mondragon Cooperatives, Mondragon's
corporate management and training models, the cooperative incubation center and
how it functions in creating and developing new products and services, Research
and Developmet at Mondragon (the largest R & D center in Europe with 14
separate centers), the role of Caja Laboral, the Mondragon Cooperatives' bank
and credit union, Mondragon's projects in developing countries, and Democracy
at Mondragon - how the cooperatives are organized. We will learn about
the Social systems and Social Councils at
Mondragon, and we will have plenty of time for questions in all sessions. At
the end of the week, we will discuss how to transfer the Mondragon model to our
communities. We also spend time with students and faculty at
Mondragon
University and learn about their TeamAcademy degree
programs.
Visits include
Fagor, a large
industrial worker co-op; SAIOLAN, an incubation center for new products and
services; Mondragon University, the education center where the cooperative
movement began. We will also learn about the TeamAcademy graduate program
(cooperative business) and meet with students and directors of this program.
Visits also include a youth cooperative formed and operated by university
students; Eroski, the largest supermarket chain in Spain; and Baketik, the
Basque Peace Center that teaches the ethics and conflict resolution. We will
spend a day at Mondragon University's new campus in Onati (a beautiful medieval
town near Mondragon) and meet with students there.
Excursions
Visit and enjoy tapas at the Basque Culinary Center in the beautiful coastal
city of San Sebastian (the newest Mondragon Univeristy campus), a visit to the
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (designed by Frank Gehry and build by a Mondragón
construction co-op), a trip to the Aranzazu Monastery and Baketik Peace Center
in the mountains above Mondragon, a visit to Vitoria, the parliamentary seat of
the Basque region, and/or
Guernica.
Accommodations All participants will
stay at the Hotel Mondragon for 6 nights. Hotel and daily breakfast and lunch
(main meal) will be included in the seminar prices. Wireless Internet access is
available in all hotel and meeting rooms.
Scholarships - Two scholarships
will be awarded through the Massena Fellowship Program at Praxis Peace
Institute. An Application form and criteria is available on this website by
clicking on the appropriate link at the top of this page. If you have further
questions, please contact us directly. or georgia@praxispeace.org
Included in Conference
Price: Seminar fee, six nights accommodations at our
hotel, daily full breakfast and main meal, all excursions, transfers to and
from Bilbao Airport (to our hotel in Mondragon, if you coordinate arrival and
departure times), and travel arrangements through our agent. Airfare not
included. Upon registration (with a $500 deposit), you will receive our travel
agent's contact information. They are scheduling our arrivals and departures as
close as possible so that most of us will be able to take our bus to the hotel
from the airport.
Registration - A
$500 deposit reserves your space. We are limited to 24 people, so we encourage
early registraion. Balances can be paid in increments, but total amount will be
due by July 26, 2013. If you are registering after this date, all money is due
upon registration.
Shared Accommodations -
$2,750
Single Accommodations -
$3,200
Click here to Register!
Mondragon Cooperative Headquarters
Praxis members of the 2010 seminar with Mikel Lezamiz (on left).
The grounds at Otalora, the Mondragon Education Center
Otalora Educational Center
A Street in Mondragon
