Children's book series teaches values of co-operation

Singapore's national co-operative association has launched a childrens' story book series to encourage the values of the co-operative movement for younger generations.

Singapore National Co-operative Federation launched the first book at its 30th anniversary and International Year of Co-operatives launch on December 4th.

Written by award-winning writer Emily Lim and supported by SEED Institute, the stories are based on the values of co-operation, mutual help, self-help and caring for the community.

The first book entitled ‘A Very Big Storm’ has now been released — and is available to download for free for the next two days. The other three parts will be launched throughout 2012.

Co-operatives around the world have also been given the opportunity to reprint the book for children in their country, or to even translate the series. For more information email: sncf@sncf.org.sg.

Mr Chan Tee Seng, Chairman of SNCF, revealed the organisation's plans to teach the values of co-operation to youngsters through a partnership with the National Library Board. He said: "I am happy to announce that NLB would carry our books at all its 23 libraries island-wide. In fact, these books are available for borrowing from today. Our books will be used to engage children and young parents in NLB’s reading initiatives for the whole of 2012. These efforts will count towards promoting literacy and bonding amongst parents and their children in NLB’s ‘10,000 and more fathers reading’ program.

"Together with NLB, and other players in the education sector, we will explore further areas of partnership to spread knowledge, literacy and co-operative values to nurture resilience and character amongst our young."

At an event in June next year, SNCF will be encouraging more than 10,000 co-operators to read to children in a single day. The Co-opaliciouz event on June 9th aims to bring more than 10,000 co-operators and their children together to learn about co-operative values through the mass reading of the story book. This activity is the culminating event to the fund-raising for the mobile library minibus.

At the launch event, Singapore's Education Minister praised the SNCF for reaching out to children, Heng Swee Keat told attendees: "I am pleased to know that the SNCF has worked closely with schools to raise awareness of the co-operative movement. Assembly talks in schools on co-operative awareness have reached out to over 7,000 students annually. Eleven of our schools have also opened their own co-operative societies, which are dedicated to building character and instilling integrity and resilience amongst its members.

"School co-operatives offer unique opportunities for youths to gain practical experience in running a sustainable social enterprise while serving the school community, in an environment where they can fall, learn, and get back on their feet. They learn to identify social gaps and find solutions to address them."

• Click here to download the book for iOS for free, or add to your Android phone.