The end of February marked 5 years of MOBA as a European Cooperative Society!
We met for a MOBA meeting in Zagreb where we had our founding Assembly as the first European Cooperative Society in Croatia, taking 4 days to zoom out, explore, clarify, coordinate, zoom back in, plan for the long-term – and for the Zoom-doomed period until MOBA’s local teams are in the same room in another one of our cities again.
MOBA is at a point in which we’re focused on building community-owned instruments to help jump-start community-led and cooperative housing projects in Central and South-Eastern Europe. In parallel, we’re intentionally building our organisation’s infrastructure to sustain our goals and amplify the transformative impact of realised housing communities.
We used our time in Zagreb for internal working, alignment and planning sessions. We cleared our heads and widened our horizons on Medvednica mountain. We (re)connected with like-minded proactive locals, initiatives and experts, introducing them to members’ activities:
Czech members from Družstvo Racek, a social cooperative that bought a house in Děčín, shared experiences with DIY building maintenance, their connections to the the wider community and other causes, as well as Sdílené domy – a community, cooperative and solidarity housing network and MOBA member.
Alliance for Collaborative Real Estate Development from Hungary spoke about their organisational ecosystem, the Periféria Policy and Research Center, the Gólya Cooperative, and the Kazán Community House, as well as their plans for new community-led developments, supported by MOBA.
Members from Serbia talked about 12+ years of local action through Ko Gradi Grad, the activities of their Цentar for new cooperative housing in Belgrade, their Pametnija Zgrada cooperative growing and their cooperative housing exhibition “How and where will we live?” becoming a part of student protests in Serbia.
Cooperative Open Architecture from Croatia shared about the model of cooperative housing in collaboration with municipalities, the Križevci project and its financial and community engagement successes and challenges.
We also had a knowledge and curiosity exchange with cooperativism scholar and expert Sonja Novkovic from the International Centre for Cooperative Management who we will see again later this year in Pula for the Cooperative Law Summer School.
Special thanks to MAMA Zagreb and Pravo na grad for always giving us a roof under which to work together when in Zagreb. We all briefly considered moving to Križevci for an endless MOBA meeting… but decided we’re sticking to our goals, which require active presence locally and focused cooperation regionally. Our work continues!
